“I know.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
He looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“Twenty-two years ago, you did.”
Everything inside me went silent.
I had to sit down.
Twenty-two years ago.
I remembered that year.
I’d been pregnant.
Or at least, I’d believed I was.
I had been 30.
We already had two boys.
We’d desperately wanted a girl.
At nine weeks, I had miscarried.
Or that’s what the doctors told me.
There had been bleeding.
Pain.
A hospital visit.
And then a doctor telling me there was no heartbeat.
I remembered Michael holding my hand.
I remembered crying for days.
I remembered burying the tiny blanket we’d bought.
What I didn’t remember was another baby.
“Michael,” I whispered, “what are you saying?”
He sat across from me.
“You didn’t miscarry.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“You delivered a baby.”
“No.”
“She was born alive.”
My entire body went numb.
I looked at Eleanor.
She was crying.
Michael continued.
“There was a medical emergency. You lost a lot of blood. You were unconscious.”
“What happened to her?”
He looked down.
“She was taken to another hospital.”
“Why?”
“Because they told me she had severe complications.”
I shook my head.
“I would remember.”
“You were unconscious for almost two days.”
“Where was she?”
Michael’s voice broke.
“I was told she died.”
I stared at him.
“Who told you?”
“The doctor.”
“What doctor?”
He gave me the name.
I didn’t recognize it.
But Eleanor did.
She covered her mouth.
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
Eleanor looked at me.
“That doctor was my daughter’s father.”
The room went silent.
I looked between them.
“You’re saying…”
Eleanor nodded.
“My husband was the doctor who delivered your baby.”
I felt sick.
Michael took my hand.
I pulled it away.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I believed she was dead.”
“For 22 years?”
“I believed it.”
“Then how is Lucy here?”
Michael looked toward the baby.
“Because Lucy is your granddaughter.”
I stared at him.
Then at Eleanor.
Then back at Lucy.
The room seemed to shrink.
“My daughter?”
Eleanor nodded.
“Her name was Anna.”
The name hit me strangely.
I had heard it before.
Not from Eleanor.
From Michael.
Years ago.
Once, during an argument, he’d mentioned a woman named Anna who had worked at a hospital.
I’d forgotten about it.
Now I couldn’t.
“Anna knew?”
“She found out when she was 20.”
Eleanor explained that Anna had been raised by another family after the hospital records were altered.
Her biological father had convinced everyone that the newborn had died.
But Anna eventually discovered inconsistencies in her birth records.
She tracked down her biological mother.
Me.
Except by then, I had moved.
Changed my number.
Changed jobs.
And the address in the hospital records was outdated.
Anna spent years trying to find me.
Then, three months earlier, she found Michael.
I turned toward him.
“You knew.”
He nodded.
“Three months ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Because Anna asked me not to.”
That answer made me even angrier.
“She was my daughter.”
“I know.”
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
“Why would she ask you to hide this from me?”
Michael looked at Eleanor.
She answered.
“Because she was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Of losing you.”
I didn’t understand.
Anna had apparently spent years believing that her biological parents had abandoned her.
When she found out the truth, she was furious.
She wanted answers.
But she also wanted to know whether I had wanted her.
Michael had told her the truth.
He’d told her that I had never willingly given her away.
That I’d believed she had died.
That I’d mourned her for 22 years.
Anna eventually agreed to meet me.
But then she found out she was pregnant.
And she became afraid.
She didn’t know how to walk into my life after all those years.
So she asked Michael to wait.
Then, tonight, she went into labor.
Something went wrong.
She had a massive hemorrhage.
