Chapter 8 - The Truth About the Baby
I stared at the screen.
The man in the hospital uniform had my face, my build, even the small scar on his chin that I had carried since a childhood bicycle accident.
But I had never worn a hospital uniform.
“I didn't do that,” I said.
Victor watched me with a thin smile.
“That's what you believe.”
Nora stepped between us.
“This footage could have been altered.”
“Of course it could,” Victor replied. “But the original hospital records say otherwise.”
He opened a folder and slid it across the table.
The documents showed that a newborn girl had been transferred from the nursery shortly after midnight. The transfer had been authorized by a man identified as Caleb Morrow.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
It was a convincing forgery.
I looked at Elizabeth.
She was trembling.
“Victor,” she whispered, “you told me the baby had died.”
“And you believed me.”
“Where is she?”
Victor turned toward the staircase.
“Bring her down.”
Two guards appeared, escorting a young woman in a dark sweater. She was pale, with dark hair pulled into a loose ponytail. A crescent-shaped birthmark marked the side of her throat.
Lily.
I knew it before anyone said her name.
She looked at me, and something in her expression changed.
“Caleb?”
My throat tightened.
“I'm your father.”
She shook her head violently.
“No.”
“I know this is a lot to take in.”
“You don't get to say that!” Her voice broke. “You don't get to show up after twenty-three years and pretend you were looking for me.”
“I didn't know where you were.”
“That's what they told me you'd say.”
Victor stepped toward her.
“Lily, tell him what you told me.”
She looked at him, then at Nora.
“I was told my parents gave me away. I was told my father was an alcoholic who didn't want a daughter and my mother died before she could take me home.”
I felt as though someone had struck me.
“Hannah would never have given you away.”
Lily flinched at the name.
“You knew my mother's name?”
“She was my wife.”
Lily's eyes filled with tears, but she turned away.
“I spent my whole life wondering why nobody wanted me.”
Nora moved closer.
“You were wanted. You were loved. My mother and Hannah tried to protect you.”
“Then why didn't they come for me?”
“Because Victor threatened them.”
Lily looked at her uncle.
For the first time, his smile faltered.
“You told me they were dead,” she said.
Victor's voice sharpened.
“They were a threat to you. I gave you a life.”
“You gave me lies!”
She lunged for the folder on the table and pulled out a document. It was an old hospital record with several handwritten notes.
Her eyes moved across the page.
Then she looked at me.
“There's another name here.”
I reached for the paper.
The document identified the nurse who had transferred the infant.
Hannah Morrow.
My wife had been involved in the transfer.
But the date was wrong.
The transfer had taken place three days after the accident, when Hannah was supposed to have been at home with me.
I remembered those days clearly. She had been recovering from a miscarriage—or what the doctors had told us was a miscarriage. I had held her while she cried, believing we'd lost our child.
Now I wondered whether the baby we buried in our memories had ever been ours to lose.
Victor took the paper from Lily.
“Enough.”
Nora seized his wrist.
“Let her go.”
He shoved her aside.
A crash sounded from the front of the house.
The sheriff's officers had entered.
Victor pulled a small remote from his pocket and pressed it.
The lights went out.
In the darkness, I heard shouting, footsteps, and the sound of glass breaking. Someone grabbed my arm.
“Caleb!”
It was Lily.
I pulled her toward the wall as a gunshot cracked through the foyer.
When the emergency lights flickered on, Victor was gone.
So was the folder containing the original hospital records.
Daniel rushed in with two deputies.
“Nora? Elizabeth?”
“Here!” Nora shouted.
Elizabeth was crouched beside the staircase, holding her side. A guard had struck her during the confusion, but she was conscious.
Lily stood beside me, shaking.
I reached toward her, then stopped.
I didn't know whether she wanted me to touch her.
She looked at my hand.
Then, slowly, she took it.
“I don't know if I can forgive you,” she whispered.
“You don't have to forgive me tonight.”
“What if you really did give me away?”
“Then I'll spend the rest of my life finding out the truth.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then she said, “There's something else you need to know.”
I waited.
“Victor didn't raise me.”
“Who did?”
She swallowed.
“A woman named Grace Ashby.”
Nora went still.
“My sister?”
Lily nodded.
“She told me she was protecting me. But last month, she disappeared.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded photograph.
It showed Grace standing beside Richard Ashby in a hospital room.
Richard was wearing a patient's gown, but he looked much younger than he did now.
On the back, someone had written a date from six months earlier.
May you like
And beneath it were six words.
Richard knew Lily was his daughter.
