Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Wasn't Supposed to Exist
No one moved.
Rebecca stood halfway between the house and the dock.
I stared at her.
She stared at me.
There are moments people imagine for years.
Reunions.
Births.
Weddings.
Homecomings.
This was not one I had ever known to imagine.
What do you say to the daughter you were never told existed?
Hello?
I'm your mother?
I'm sorry?
None of those words were large enough.
Rebecca was fifty-one.
Of course she was.
The realization felt strange because part of me had expected the twelve-year-old girl who once sat in my kitchen.
She wore jeans, a charcoal sweater, and a brown jacket.
Her hair reached her shoulders.
Her posture was guarded.
But her eyes—
My mother's eyes.
I had seen them every morning of my childhood.
Rebecca spoke first.
“You opened it.”
Her voice was calm.
Not warm.
“Laura threw it into the lake.”
“I know.”
I looked at Laura.
Rebecca followed my eyes.
“She called me.”
“When?”
“After she drove away.”
Laura looked ashamed.
“I told Rebecca what I'd done.”
I turned to David.
My son stood ten feet behind Rebecca.
His face looked older than it had that morning.
“How long?”
“Mom—”
“How long have you known?”
He closed his eyes.
“Six years.”
Laura had told the truth.
Six years.
“Your father told you?”
“Yes.”
“Before he died?”
“Yes.”
“While I sat beside his bed?”
David's face twisted.
“Yes.”
“While I fed him soup and changed his sheets and held his hand every night?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ask you to keep it from me?”
David didn't answer.
That was the answer.
I laughed once.
A terrible sound.
Rebecca watched me.
Something in her expression shifted.
Not sympathy.
Uncertainty.
Perhaps she had expected something else.
I looked at her.
“Did you believe I gave you away?”
Rebecca's jaw tightened.
“I believed what Anna told me.”
“Anna.”
“My mother.”
The correction hurt.
But she had every right to make it.
“Of course.”
“She raised me.”
“I know.”
“She loved me.”
“I nodded.”
“I don't want you to think—”
“I don't.”
Rebecca seemed surprised.
“I don't want to take that away from you. Whatever happened, she was your mother in every way that mattered.”
Her eyes dropped.
For the first time, her guard loosened slightly.
“She died nine years ago.”
“I remember reading the obituary.”
Rebecca looked up sharply.
“You did?”
“I knew her.”
“You knew of her.”
“No. I knew her enough to say hello. Enough to know she always wore red lipstick. Enough to remember she brought lemon bars to school fundraisers.”
Rebecca's expression changed.
“You remember that?”
“I remember you.”
She stopped breathing.
I stepped closer.
“I remember you at twelve. You cut your knee on the rocks near this dock.”
Her hand moved instinctively toward her left knee.
A scar.
Still there.
“I cleaned it.”
“You gave me lemonade.”
“Yes.”
“You said I was brave.”
My throat closed.
“I had no idea.”
She looked away.
For a second, neither of us could speak.
Then David approached.
“Mom, you need to know everything before you decide what Dad did.”
I turned on him.
“I already know enough.”
“No.”
“My baby was taken.”
“I know.”
“My medical records were altered.”
“I know.”
“Your birth was staged.”
His eyes filled.
“I know.”
“And you kept it from me.”
“Yes.”
“Then what exactly am I missing?”
David pulled a folded document from inside his coat.
“The reason Dad finally told me.”
I didn't take it.
“What is it?”
“A letter from Grandma Eleanor.”
“She wrote enough letters.”
“This one was addressed to Dad.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before she died.”
He handed it to me.
I opened it.
My mother's handwriting again.
Charles,
You have turned one terrible decision into nineteen years of lies.
Margaret asks about the gaps in her memory.
You keep giving her pills and explanations.
This must end.
If you won't tell her, I will.
I looked up.
“She was going to tell me.”
David nodded.
“But she died.”
“Yes.”
Heart attack.
Sudden.
At sixty-eight.
No warning.
Or so I had believed.
Thomas, who had been listening, stepped forward.
“When exactly did Eleanor die?”
“November 1994.”
“Who found her?”
I knew before I answered.
“Charles.”
Thomas and I exchanged a look.
“No,” David said immediately. “Don't do that.”
“Do what?” Thomas asked.
“Turn Dad into a murderer.”
“Nobody said that.”
“You were thinking it.”
I was.
I hated myself for it.
But I was.
Charles had lied about children.
Hospital records.
My medication.
A staged birth.
What limit could I safely assume he had?
Rebecca spoke.
“Charles didn't kill Eleanor.”
Everyone looked at her.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because Anna was there.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Eleanor called her.”
Rebecca's gaze stayed on mine.
“She was planning to bring me to you.”
My mother had been preparing to reunite us.
“What happened?”
“Anna refused.”
“Why?”
“Because by then I was nineteen. She was terrified she'd lose me.”
“You were an adult.”
“Fear doesn't always care.”
No.
It doesn't.
Rebecca continued.
“They argued. Eleanor became upset. She had a heart attack.”
“Charles arrived afterward?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Anna told me before she died.”
I studied her.
“What else did Anna tell you?”
Rebecca's face hardened.
“That you knew.”
My heart sank.
“She said Eleanor had contacted you once. She said you refused to see me.”
“That never happened.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
“Because of the letters.”
Laura shifted.
The missing letters.
Rebecca turned to her.
“You should give them back.”
“I will.”
“You should have never taken them.”
“I panicked.”
Rebecca's voice became cold.
“You tried to drown fifty years of evidence.”
“I was trying to protect David.”
“From what?”
Laura's eyes moved toward him.
David looked at the ground.
I realized there was still another secret.
“What did he do?”
“No,” Laura said.
“What did my son do?”
David stepped forward.
“I contacted Rebecca without telling you.”
“I know.”
“No. That's not all.”
Rebecca interrupted.
“David paid me.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“He offered me money to stay away from you.”
David flinched.
“That isn't fair.”
“Isn't it?”
“I offered to help you.”
“You offered me two hundred thousand dollars.”
My mouth went dry.
David rubbed his forehead.
“Mom, listen.”
“Two hundred thousand?”
“It wasn't hush money.”
“What was it?”
“I thought Rebecca wanted compensation.”
Rebecca gave a sharp laugh.
“I wanted the truth.”
“You said Anna had medical debts.”
“Because she did.”
“And I tried to help.”
“You told me taking the money would make things easier for everyone.”
David closed his eyes.
I knew that phrase.
Easier.
Charles had loved easier.
Secrets were easier.
Sedation was easier.
Changed records were easier.
Keeping Rebecca away was easier.
I stared at my son.
“You became your father.”
He looked as if I had struck him.
“Mom.”
“No.”
“I didn't know how to tell you.”
“You start with the truth.”
“I was scared.”
“Of me?”
“Of losing you.”
That stopped me.
He looked at Rebecca.
“Dad told me that if you learned what happened, you'd look at me and see the baby you were allowed to keep.”
My anger faltered.
David's voice broke.
“He said you'd hate me because Rebecca was taken and I wasn't.”
“Oh, David.”
“I know it's stupid.”
“No.”
“I spent six years believing I was the reason you lost a daughter.”
“You were a baby.”
“I know that here.”
He touched his temple.
“Not here.”
His hand moved to his chest.
For the first time that day, I saw not a man hiding a secret but my son trapped inside one his father had handed him.
I wanted to hug him.
I didn't.
Not yet.
Love could wait beside accountability.
Thomas cleared his throat.
“We still need those letters.”
Laura nodded.
“I'll get them.”
“Where?”
“At my sister's house.”
“I'm coming,” David said.
“No,” Laura replied.
Everyone looked at her.
Her expression had changed.
“Why not?” David asked.
Laura took out her phone.
There were four missed calls.
All from her sister.
Then a text.
Laura read it.
Her face drained.
“What?”
She handed the phone to Thomas.
He read aloud.
Someone broke into the house. They only took the envelope.
Nobody spoke.
Rebecca looked toward the road.
“Who else knew?”
Laura shook her head.
“No one.”
David said, “Dad's dead.”
Anna was dead.
Eleanor was dead.
Dr. Cole had died years ago.
I looked at Thomas.
“If all the people who created the secret are gone, who is still trying to hide it?”
Thomas didn't answer.
His phone rang.
He listened for less than a minute.
Then he looked at Rebecca.
“Ms. Mercer?”
“Yes?”
“I need you to come with me.”
“Why?”
“We found the stolen envelope.”
“Where?”
Thomas's expression hardened.
“In a car stopped twelve miles from here.”
I asked, “Whose car?”
He looked at David.
May you like
“Your attorney's.”
And then headlights swept across the driveway again.
