Chapter 5 - The Day I Was Born
I woke Dad at 1:22 in the morning.
“Dad.”
He opened his eyes.
“What?”
“I found another recording.”
He sat up.
“What recording?”
“It’s dated the day I was born.”
He stared at the laptop.
“That’s impossible.”
“It’s in the folder.”
“Scott wasn’t there when you were born.”
“I know.”
“So the date must be wrong.”
“Maybe.”
But neither of us believed that.
Daniel came into the kitchen holding Lily.
“What’s happening?”
I showed him.
The file was only eighty-one seconds.
I pressed play.
Static.
Then a woman’s voice.
Young.
Breathless.
Mother.
“This cannot happen again.”
A man answered.
Charles.
“You said James didn’t know.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Then stop panicking.”
“She looks like him.”
My entire body went cold.
Dad whispered, “What?”
On the recording, Mother started crying.
Not fake crying.
Not controlled.
Terrified crying.
Charles said:
“Helen, listen to me. James will raise her. Nobody has to know.”
Mother:
“What if Rebecca remembers?”
Charles:
“She’s six.”
Mother:
“She saw us.”
Dad stood.
The chair tipped over.
Daniel grabbed the laptop before it hit the floor.
The recording continued.
Mother said:
“She knows Margaret isn’t his.”
Silence.
Dad did not breathe.
Neither did I.
Charles replied:
“She’s a child. By the time she understands, it won’t matter.”
The file ended.
No one spoke.
My father stared at me.
I stared back.
Every childhood photograph seemed to rearrange itself inside my head.
Helen correcting my posture.
Helen telling me I was “different.”
Rebecca saying I did not belong.
Mother worshipping family order.
Dad loving me quietly.
Charles appearing around the edges of our lives.
“Dad,” I whispered.
He sat down.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
His voice broke.
“I don’t know.”
I went to him.
He raised both hands.
“No.”
“What?”
“Give me a minute.”
So I did.
He walked outside.
Daniel looked at me.
“Do you want me to follow him?”
“No.”
I stared at the laptop.
“What if Charles is my father?”
Daniel did not answer.
“What if that’s why Mother hated me?”
“She doesn’t get an excuse.”
“I know.”
“What she did to Lily has nothing to do with who your biological father is.”
“I know.”
But knowing and feeling were different things.
Dad returned fifteen minutes later.
His face was wet.
He sat beside me.
“You are my daughter.”
“Dad—”
“I don’t care what a test says.”
“You might later.”
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know what I did when you had pneumonia at eight.”
I looked at him.
“I know who taught you to drive.”
His voice shook.
“I know who walked you down the aisle.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“I know whose baby I pulled away from that fire.”
He took my hand.
“No piece of paper gets to tell me whether you are my daughter.”
I cried then.
Quietly.
Daniel put one hand on my shoulder.
Lily slept against his chest.
At eight the next morning, we went to the police station.
Officer Calder met us with a detective named Lena Shaw.
She was in her forties, sharp-eyed, calm.
She spread several photographs across a conference table.
The home-office files.
Rebecca’s journal.
The medication.
The guardianship forms.
A folder labeled MARGARET.
Then another.
LILY.
Then another.
JAMES.
Dad looked at it.
“What’s in mine?”
Detective Shaw answered.
“Bank records. Medical documents. Notes about your schedule.”
“My schedule?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We’re still determining that.”
She looked at me.
“We also found DNA paperwork.”
My chest tightened.
“What kind?”
“A private laboratory report dated thirty-two years ago.”
Dad closed his eyes.
I was thirty-two.
Shaw slid a photocopy toward us.
PATERNITY EXCLUSION.
James Morgan was excluded as my biological father.
The listed biological father was not named.
But the report had been requested by Helen Morgan.
Dad stared at it.
“You knew?” I asked.
“No.”
His answer came instantly.
I believed him.
Shaw placed another document beside it.
A handwritten note.
Mother’s handwriting.
JAMES NEVER NEEDS TO KNOW.
Underneath:
REBECCA MUST NEVER TALK ABOUT CHARLES.
I felt strangely calm.
Not because it did not hurt.
Because too much had happened.
The mind eventually protects itself by refusing to be surprised.
“Did Rebecca know?” I asked.
“Based on her journal, yes.”
“How long?”
“Possibly since childhood.”
Everything snapped into place.
The endless accusations.
You take things that do not belong to you.
The obsession with order.
Rebecca had grown up knowing I was the child of Mother’s affair.
Maybe she had been told my existence damaged the family.
Then she lost her own daughter.
Mother weaponized both traumas.
She turned Rebecca’s grief into resentment against me.
Detective Shaw continued.
“There’s something else.”
Of course.
“There are payments from your mother to Charles Whitaker going back more than three decades.”
Dad stared.
“For what?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Did you find him?”
“Not yet.”
“Is he missing?”
“He left his residence yesterday afternoon.”
“When?”
Shaw checked her notes.
“Approximately forty minutes after the incident at the baby shower.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“He knew.”
“Possibly.”
“Someone called him.”
“We’re reviewing phone records.”
“What happens to Helen?”
“She has been charged in connection with yesterday’s incident.”
“Rebecca?”
“The investigation is ongoing.”
I hated those words too.
Shaw noticed.
“I understand your frustration.”
“No, you don’t.”
She accepted that.
“You’re right.”
Then she slid one final item toward me.
A photograph.
It showed Mother outside a building.
Charles stood beside her.
Rebecca was entering through the door.
The date was from ten days before Lily’s birth.
“What building is that?”
“A private adoption agency.”
My heart lurched.
“What?”
“The agency says Rebecca contacted them.”
“For what?”
“To inquire about adopting a newborn.”
I stared at Shaw.
“Whose newborn?”
“They claim no specific child was discussed.”
“But Lily was due in ten days.”
“Yes.”
Daniel clenched his fists.
Shaw continued.
“There was never a legal adoption plan involving Lily. What we are trying to determine is whether Helen and Rebecca believed they could create one after the fact.”
“By making me look unstable.”
“That is one possibility.”
“And Charles?”
“We need to find him.”
Dad pointed at the photograph.
“Where did you get this?”
“From a camera across the street.”
I looked closer.
Something was visible through the glass door of the adoption agency.
A man.
Older.
Holding the door open for Rebecca.
I leaned forward.
“Who is that?”
Shaw turned the photograph.
“We were hoping you could tell us.”
Dad looked.
Then his whole body stiffened.
Daniel noticed first.
“James?”
Dad pointed at the man.
“That’s Dr. Malcolm Reeves.”
“Who?”
“The doctor who delivered Margaret.”
Detective Shaw’s expression changed.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
Dad stared at me.
“Because he was also Helen’s doctor.”
The room became very quiet.
Shaw gathered the photograph.
“We need to speak with him.”
Dad shook his head.
“You can’t.”
“Why?”
“He died twenty years ago.”
Detective Shaw looked back at the image.
The date stamp was ten days before Lily’s birth.
May you like
Six weeks earlier.
The dead doctor was standing in the doorway.
