Chapter 4: The Years They Took From Us
At the hospital, a nurse secured Grace’s arm in a sling while Lily slept against my chest.
Grace watched me hold her daughter as if one wrong movement might break all three of us.
“How old was Lily when I last saw her?” I asked.
“Three months.”
“Then she can’t remember me.”
“She knows your face from the videos you made before she was born.”
Grace unlocked her phone and opened a recording.
A younger version of me appeared on the screen, painting yellow stars over a crib.
“Hello, little Lily,” the man in the video said.
“If your mother says I chose this awful color, she’s lying.”
Grace laughed in the recording.
“You picked it.”
“Your mother is always right.
Learn that early.”
Lily stirred in my arms.
“That’s you,” she murmured.
My throat tightened.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
Grace turned away, but I saw tears reach her chin.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
“After the accident, your father said your memory might return if nobody pressured you.
Then he brought me a document and said your company would collapse if the marriage became public.”
“You signed it?”
“Lily needed heart surgery.
He offered to cover it if I disappeared.”
I rose too quickly, waking Lily.
“You took his money?”
Grace’s face crumpled.
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than any excuse could have.
“You let me believe I had no family.”
“I stood outside your rehabilitation center every Friday for two months.
Victoria had me removed each time.”
“Why didn’t you go to court?”
“With what money?
Your father’s lawyers said I’d lose Lily if I caused a scandal.”
Lily reached toward Grace.
I carried her across the room and lowered her beside her mother.
“Was the document an annulment?”
“I thought it was a confidentiality agreement.
Daniel checked today.
No annulment was ever filed.”
My phone rang.
Victoria’s name filled the screen.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere Grace can’t put on another show.”
“You’re going to return what you took.”
“You should ask your wife what else she signed.”
Grace’s fingers tightened around Lily’s blanket.
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
“A sworn statement saying Lily wasn’t yours.”
Grace stood despite the nurse’s warning.
“That is not what he told me it was.”
Victoria laughed softly.
“You signed every page.”
“You covered the top sheet.”
“And you accepted two hundred thousand dollars.”
“For Lily’s operation!”
“To disappear,” Victoria replied.
“The reason changes depending on your audience.”
“Come back and say that to my face.”
“No.
Take a paternity test first.
When it comes back negative, don’t say I didn’t protect you.”
She ended the call.
Grace wiped her cheeks with her good hand.
“Do you believe her?”
“I believe we need proof no one can twist.”
Grace stared at me.
“That sounded exactly like your father.”
The words bent something inside me.
Lily looked from her mother to me and began to cry.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither did I,” Grace whispered.
“But I had to do it anyway.”
A doctor entered holding a tablet.
“Mr.
Vale, the laboratory has a problem with your requested paternity test.”
“I haven’t requested one yet.”
May you like
He turned the screen toward me.
“Then who submitted a sample under your name yesterday?”
