Chapter 9
I barely made it out of the interview room.
Daniel stood when he saw me.
“Claire?”
I couldn’t look at him.
He walked toward me.
“What happened?”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
My whole body shook.
Detective Alvarez opened the door behind me.
“Mrs. Carter?”
“I need air.”
Daniel followed me outside.
I stood on the concrete steps and tried to breathe.
He stayed several feet away.
That was somehow worse.
“Did she threaten you?”
“No.”
“Did she say something about Noah?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
I looked at the man I had loved for eleven years.
My husband.
My best friend.
The father of my child.
And heard Evelyn’s words again.
Margaret Bennett.
My mother.
“No.”
I whispered it to myself.
Daniel came closer.
“What did she say?”
“She said my mother was your biological mother.”
Silence.
Complete silence.
Daniel didn’t react at first.
His brain refused it just like mine had.
Then his face emptied.
“What?”
“She says my mother had a baby when she was nineteen.”
“No.”
“She says the baby ended up at St. Catherine’s.”
“No.”
“And that baby was you.”
He stepped backward.
“No.”
“I don’t believe her.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
“Because she knew Aunt Rebecca.”
Daniel stared at me.
“What?”
“She told me to ask Rebecca.”
“Your aunt?”
“My mother’s sister.”
“Call her.”
I looked at him.
“Now.”
My hands shook so badly Daniel had to hold my phone while I found the number.
Aunt Rebecca answered on the fourth ring.
“Claire?”
Her voice was warm.
Normal.
That almost broke me.
“Aunt Rebecca.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Did Mom have a baby before Megan?”
Silence.
Daniel closed his eyes.
I knew before she answered.
“Claire…”
My knees nearly gave out.
“You knew.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“Was it a boy?”
Another silence.
Then Rebecca started crying.
“Oh, honey.”
I sat down on the steps.
Daniel turned away.
“Was it a boy?”
“Yes.”
The word ripped through me.
“What happened to him?”
“She was told he died.”
Daniel looked back.
“When?”
“Nineteen eighty-eight.”
Daniel’s birth year.
I covered my mouth.
“What hospital?”
Rebecca sobbed.
“St. Catherine’s.”
Daniel walked away from us.
He gripped the railing.
I forced myself to keep asking.
“Did Mom ever see the baby after he died?”
“No.”
“Did she see a body?”
“No.”
“Was there a funeral?”
“No.”
“She just accepted it?”
“She was nineteen, Claire. She was terrified. Grandma and Grandpa hid the pregnancy from everyone.”
“Who was the father?”
Rebecca went quiet.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Did Mom name the baby?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Christopher.”
Daniel bent forward like he’d been hit.
My eyes filled with tears.
“Did she ever look for him?”
“She believed he was dead.”
“Did Dad know?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“Michael knew?”
“She told him before they married.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Did Dad ever investigate St. Catherine’s?”
Rebecca inhaled sharply.
“How do you know that?”
That was the final confirmation.
Everything Evelyn said fit.
Too much of it.
My father had discovered something.
George had discovered something.
Two families had been tied together decades before Daniel and I met.
“Rebecca, I need you to tell me everything.”
“I can’t do this over the phone.”
“You have to.”
She cried quietly.
Then said, “Your father found a bank statement hidden in your mother’s old papers.”
“What statement?”
“A payment.”
“From the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“To Mom?”
“No.”
“To who?”
“Your grandparents.”
I stared at nothing.
My maternal grandparents were long dead.
“What was the payment for?”
“I don’t know.”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
In 1988.
A fortune.
Daniel heard.
His face changed.
“My grandparents sold the baby?”
Rebecca gasped.
“No.”
“Then why did they take money?”
“They said it was a settlement.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Mom know?”
“No.”
My heart hurt.
My mother died believing her son was dead.
While Daniel grew up less than fifty miles away.
We ended the call only after Rebecca promised to come to the station with every document she still had.
Daniel sat beside me.
Neither of us touched.
That was new.
Terrible.
“We need testing,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Against Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
“And maybe stored material from your mother?”
“My mother was cremated.”
He nodded.
Noah.
My stomach turned.
“Noah.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Don’t.”
“If we’re related—”
“Don’t say it yet.”
“We need to know.”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
“I know.”
We had spent two days fighting to prove Daniel was Noah’s biological father.
Now that result had become terrifying.
If Daniel and I shared a mother, Noah had been conceived from a relationship neither of us understood was genetically close.
I felt sick.
Daniel looked at me.
“Whatever happens, none of this is your fault.”
I shook my head.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“I don’t need comfort yet. I need facts.”
He nodded.
Facts.
That became our lifeline.
Aunt Rebecca arrived the next morning.
She looked twenty years older than I remembered.
When she saw Daniel, she covered her mouth.
“What?”
He looked at her.
“You see something.”
Rebecca cried.
“You have Margaret’s eyes.”
I nearly collapsed.
She brought a box.
Inside were old letters.
Hospital forms.
My mother’s diary.
One page was dated May 12, 1988.
I read it with shaking hands.
They told me Christopher is gone.
Mom says I should forget.
How do you forget a baby you felt moving inside you?
I asked to see him.
They said no.
Dad says it will only make things worse.
I keep thinking I hear him crying.
I know that sounds insane.
I know my baby is dead.
But I swear I heard him.
I stopped reading.
Daniel was crying silently.
Rebecca gave a DNA sample that afternoon.
The laboratory promised results within twenty-four hours.
Longest twenty-four hours of our lives.
Daniel slept downstairs.
I slept beside Noah.
Not because Daniel and I suddenly felt like strangers.
Because we were terrified of what we might be.
At three in the morning, Noah woke.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Why is Daddy sad?”
I swallowed.
“He learned something about his family.”
“Grandma again?”
“Yes.”
Noah frowned.
“Grandma makes everybody sad.”
Children could make complicated truths brutally simple.
“Yes.”
“Can Daddy still sleep with us?”
I almost broke.
“Daddy loves you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I kissed his forehead.
“Tomorrow.”
The results arrived at 10:06 a.m.
Daniel and I sat together.
Rebecca across from us.
Detective Alvarez nearby.
The geneticist appeared by video.
She explained the relationship estimate.
I heard individual words.
Markers.
Probability.
Kinship.
Then the sentence that mattered.
“Mr. Carter is not consistent with being Ms. Bennett’s maternal half-sibling.”
I stared at the screen.
Daniel stopped breathing.
“What?”
The geneticist repeated.
“You do not appear to share a biological mother.”
Relief exploded through me so violently I started crying.
Daniel covered his face.
Rebecca began sobbing too.
But the geneticist wasn’t finished.
“There is, however, a close biological relationship.”
My relief stopped.
“What relationship?” I asked.
She looked at her notes.
“Based on the available sample from Rebecca Bennett, Mr. Carter is consistent with being her biological nephew.”
Daniel frowned.
“That means Margaret was still my mother.”
“No,” the geneticist said.
“Not necessarily.”
I stared.
“Rebecca is my mother’s sister.”
“Yes.”
“So if he’s Rebecca’s nephew—”
The geneticist spoke carefully.
“There is another possibility.”
Rebecca went completely still.
I looked at her.
She looked terrified.
“What possibility?”
The geneticist answered.
“Rebecca herself could be Mr. Carter’s biological mother.”
My head snapped toward my aunt.
Daniel stared at her.
Rebecca started shaking.
“No.”
I stood.
“Aunt Rebecca?”
“No.”
“You had a baby?”
She covered her mouth.
Tears streamed down her face.
“Rebecca.”
She whispered, “I was fifteen.”
The room disappeared around me.
My mother had not been Daniel’s mother.
Her sister was.
Rebecca.
The woman sitting across from us.
Daniel whispered, “You’re my mother?”
Rebecca cried harder.
“I don’t know.”
“You were pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The same year.”
My stomach twisted.
“You and Mom were pregnant at the same time?”
She nodded.
“What happened to your baby?”
“I was sent away.”
“Where?”
“A home for pregnant girls.”
“Did you give birth at St. Catherine’s?”
“Yes.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“And they told you?”
Rebecca whispered, “They told me my baby was adopted.”
No one spoke.
Then Detective Alvarez asked the question that made Rebecca go pale.
“Who was the father?”
She stared at the floor.
“Rebecca?”
She looked up.
May you like
And whispered a name.
“George Carter.”
