PART 5
I stared at the address on the envelope.
My address.
Our house.
For several seconds, I couldn’t understand what I was looking at.
Then the realization came slowly.
Not somewhere in another city.
Not another state.
Not even another country.
My daughter had been close to me.
Perhaps she had passed me on the street.
Perhaps she had stood in my house.
Perhaps I had spoken to her without knowing who she was.
My hands began shaking.
I tore open the envelope.
Inside was a single photograph.
I pulled it out.
My breath caught.
It was a photograph of Jake.
But he wasn’t alone.
Standing beside him was the young woman from the photograph.
Lily.
The photograph had been taken outside a university building.
On the back, someone had written:
They met three years ago. Neither knows the truth.
I sat down hard on the old hospital floor.
Jake.
My son.
Lily.
My daughter.
They had met.
For three years.
I thought about every time Jake had mentioned a friend from college.
Every time he had brought someone home.
Every Christmas when he had introduced me to people I barely remembered.
Then I remembered a young woman.
Three Christmases ago.
She had stood near the kitchen.
Dark hair.
Brown eyes.
Quiet.
She had smiled politely when I introduced myself.
“I’m Lily.”
I had smiled back.
“Susan.”
I remembered telling her she looked familiar.
She had laughed.
“I get that a lot.”
I had forgotten her.
Or perhaps my mind had refused to see what was standing directly in front of me.
My daughter had been in my home.
And I hadn’t known her.
I stood up.
I had to find Michael.
He was waiting at our house.
When I walked through the front door, he was sitting at the kitchen table.
He looked exhausted.
“You went to the hospital.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“You found Margaret.”
“Yes.”
His eyes closed.
“She told you.”
“She told me Lily is my daughter.”
Michael didn’t move.
“Is it true?”
Silence.
“Michael.”
His shoulders dropped.
“Yes.”
The word barely came out.
I walked toward him.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Eighteen years.”
My chest tightened.
“You knew for eighteen years that my daughter was alive.”
“I knew she existed.”
“You knew where she was.”
“For most of that time.”
“You let me live eighteen years believing she was dead.”
“I thought it was the only way.”
“The only way to what?”
“To keep you alive.”
I slammed my hand onto the table.
“You keep saying that!”
Michael flinched.
“But you never explain what you mean.”
He looked at me.
“After your overdose, Dr. Harris told me the pregnancy hadn’t ended the way everyone thought.”
“What happened?”
“He told me there was another doctor involved.”
“Who?”
“An obstetrician who had been working with him.”
Michael paused.
“They had discovered that your pregnancy was much farther along than the original records showed.”
I frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“It didn’t to me either.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out another file.
“Your dates had been altered.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Someone had changed your medical records.”
“Why?”
“Because you weren’t eight weeks pregnant.”
My heart pounded.
“How far along was I?”
“Almost four months.”
I stared at him.
“That still doesn’t explain Lily.”
“No.”
“What does?”
Michael opened the file.
“Your original records showed a complication involving your uterus. The doctors believed you could not safely continue the pregnancy.”
I whispered, “So they delivered the baby?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“They performed an emergency procedure to preserve your life.”
He swallowed.
“The baby was still alive.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“What happened to her?”
“Dr. Harris arranged for another medical team to take over.”
“Why?”
“Because he believed someone was trying to get control of the baby.”
“Who?”
Michael looked at me.
“The man you had the affair with.”
I froze.
“What?”
“He wasn’t just your lover.”
Michael pushed a photograph toward me.
I recognized the man immediately.
The man I had believed loved me.
The man who had told me I was special.
The man who had promised that someday we would be together.
His real name was printed beneath the photograph.
Daniel Harris.
Dr. Harris’s son.
I stared at the page.
“His son?”
Michael nodded.
“He approached you because he knew you were pregnant.”
My stomach turned.
“But I didn’t know.”
“No.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Your father had discovered something.”
“What?”
Michael took a breath.
“Your father had created a trust for you.”
I stared at him.
“A trust?”
“Not an ordinary one.”
He placed another document on the table.
I read the first paragraph.
My father’s name.
My name.
Then a number.
My hands went cold.
“That’s…”
“Your father had accumulated significant assets before his death.”
“How much?”
Michael looked at me.
“Enough that several people were willing to destroy lives for it.”
I looked back at the document.
The trust had been established in my name.
But there was another beneficiary.
Child of Susan Miller.
I couldn’t breathe.
“That’s why.”
Michael nodded.
“They wanted access to the trust.”
“But why did they need my baby?”
“Because your father’s will contained a condition.”
“What condition?”
Michael hesitated.
“The trust couldn’t be accessed until your child reached adulthood.”
I stared at him.
“So Lily…”
“Was the key.”
I sat down.
For eighteen years, my daughter had unknowingly been the reason people had watched me.
The reason someone had followed Michael.
The reason records had disappeared.
The reason my father had left warnings.
The reason my husband had remained silent.
But there was still something I couldn’t understand.
“If they wanted the money, why didn’t they simply take Lily?”
“They tried.”
I looked up.
“When?”
“After she was born.”
“What happened?”
“Margaret took her.”
“Why?”
“She was a nurse at the hospital. She knew what was happening.”
Michael looked down.
“She changed the baby’s records and arranged for Lily to be placed under her family’s protection.”
I stared at him.
“Then why was she called Lily Harris?”
“Because it was safer than using your name.”
“And Dr. Harris?”
“He helped protect her.”
I shook my head.
“But he was involved.”
“He was.”
“How can he be both?”
“Because he made terrible choices.”
Michael’s voice became quiet.
“He helped create the situation, then spent the rest of his life trying to undo it.”
I looked at the photograph again.
Lily.
My daughter.
Eighteen years old.
Alive.
And I had never held her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Michael looked at me.
“Because they threatened Jake.”
My eyes filled.
“Who?”
“The people controlling the trust.”
“Are they still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Who are they?”
Michael pushed another document toward me.
There were several names.
Lawyers.
Businessmen.
A former hospital administrator.
And one name that made me stop.
Daniel Harris.
My former lover.
I stared at it.
“He’s still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Michael didn’t answer.
I looked up.
“Where is he?”
“He’s been trying to find Lily.”
“Why?”
“Because the trust becomes accessible when she turns eighteen.”
I looked at the clock.
September.
Lily’s birthday was October 29.
She would turn eighteen in just over a month.
Michael whispered:
“That’s why everything started again.”
My doctor.
The ultrasound.
The missing records.
The hospital.
Margaret.
The surveillance.
They weren’t random.
Someone had realized I was beginning to uncover the truth.
And Lily’s eighteenth birthday was approaching.
The next morning, Michael and I drove to Margaret’s house.
She opened the door before we knocked.
“I knew you’d come.”
“Where is Lily?”
Margaret looked at Michael.
Then she looked at me.
“She wants to meet you.”
My heart stopped.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Where?”
“Your father’s old house.”
I hadn’t been there since I was twenty-nine.
It had been sold after his death.
Or so I thought.
Margaret gave me an address.
I stared at it.
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
“My father sold that property.”
Margaret shook her head.
“He never sold it.”
“What?”
“The ownership was transferred into the trust.”
Michael nodded.
“That was the secret.”
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