“People asking about your medical records. Anonymous requests for childhood photographs. A break-in at our Boston house where nothing valuable was taken.”
I remembered that break-in. I had been seventeen. My parents told me someone had mistaken our home for another property.
“What did they take?”
“Your baby book.”
A painful laugh escaped me.
“So everyone knew except me.”
“Not everyone.”
“Richard knew.”
“Only part of it.”
“How much?”
“That you were born through the same trial. That your biological father was unknown. That the research records might expose powerful people.”
“And he agreed to marry me.”
“Not at first.”
She looked toward the dark courtyard.
“Samuel wrote that letter after Richard came to us and said he wanted to propose. Your father accused him of confusing love with obligation.”
I held my breath.
“Richard left that night. Two weeks later, he returned and told Samuel he would marry you only if Samuel promised never to use the truth to control your choices.”
I thought again of the letter.
Richard has agreed to marry Amelia, but only if you keep the truth about the baby buried.
Not because Richard had been paid.
Not because he had been assigned to me.
Because he had demanded that my father stop manipulating my life.
The meaning shifted beneath me.
“Why keep the letter?” I asked.
“Samuel kept everything.”
“No. Why did Richard keep it?”
My mother’s eyes filled with tears.
“Perhaps because it was proof that, once, he tried to protect your freedom.”
The room fell silent.
I wanted relief.
Instead, I felt grief for the young man Richard had been and anger at the man he had become.
Protection did not excuse secrecy.
Love did not excuse control.
But neither did betrayal erase every good thing that had existed before it.
That was the hardest truth of all.
The door opened quietly.
Lena entered.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We found Richard.”
I pushed myself upright.
“Where?”
“In an abandoned rental house near Ventura.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
My chest loosened before I could stop it.
“He is being transported here under guard,” Lena continued. “He has a head injury and signs of dehydration, but he is conscious.”
“Who took him?”
“He says Clara.”
