Chapter 6
Alive.
The word filled the room.
Then it broke into pieces because no one knew what to do with it.
I stared at Elliot.
“My mama?”
He nodded, but his face was careful.
“She wrote from a women’s shelter in Providence.”
I grabbed the blanket.
“Can we go?”
Rachel stepped forward.
“Ella, we need to be careful.”
“No,” I said, panic rising. “You said alive. We have to go now.”
Sophie took my hand.
“We will.”
Detective Harris read the letter.
Her jaw tightened.
“Mara says Celeste threatened to have her committed if she came near the family. She says she was told Ella died. Then she learned from a nurse that the baby had been transferred, not buried. She has been trying to reach Elliot for years.”
Elliot covered his face.
All those years.
All those postcards locked away.
All those nights I slept hungry while my mother was somewhere else, thinking I was gone.
I could not breathe.
Mrs. Alvarez knelt in front of me.
“Little one, look at me.”
I looked at her.
“Slow.”
I tried to breathe slowly.
It did not work.
“I want my mama.”
Elliot’s voice broke.
“I know.”
By afternoon, we were in a convoy to Providence.
Detective Harris arranged local police.
Rachel came.
Sophie refused to stay behind again.
Elliot did not fight her this time.
I sat in the back seat with Sophie’s hand in mine and the bracelet charm pressed against my palm.
Mara.
My mother’s name.
My almost memory.
The shelter was a brick building behind a church.
Nothing fancy.
Nothing like the Harper estate.
But when the door opened, I smelled laundry soap and soup, and for some reason my chest hurt less.
A woman with silver-streaked dark hair stood in the hallway.
She was thin.
Too thin.
Her face looked older than the mother in my memories.
But her eyes.
I knew her eyes.
She saw me.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Ella?”
My whole body shook.
For one second, I was afraid to move.
If I ran, she might disappear.
If I blinked, she might become a dream.
Then she dropped to her knees.
“My baby.”
I ran.
She caught me so hard we both nearly fell.
Her arms wrapped around me, trembling.
She smelled different.
But underneath it, somehow, she smelled like my old blanket.
Like song.
Like home.
I sobbed into her neck.
“Mama.”
She rocked me, crying so hard she could barely breathe.
“My little rose. My little rose. I looked for you. I never stopped.”
“I thought you left.”
“No. Never. Never.”
Elliot stood in the doorway, crying silently.
Mara looked up.
For a moment, brother and sister stared at each other across eight stolen years.
Then Elliot whispered, “Mara.”
She held one arm out.
He crossed the hallway and fell to his knees beside us.
They held each other with me between them.
Sophie cried into Rachel’s coat.
Even Detective Harris turned away.
For ten minutes, nobody asked questions.
Nobody talked about court.
Nobody said Celeste’s name.
I had my mother.
Then the shelter director brought us to a private room.
Mara kept touching my face.
My hair.
My hands.
Like she had to prove I was real.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“Celeste told me you didn’t want me.”
Mara made a sound like pain.
“I woke in the hospital after surgery, and they told me my baby was gone. Celeste handled everything. She said Elliot wanted nothing to do with me because I had embarrassed the family.”
Elliot shook his head.
“I never said that.”
“I know now.”
Rachel placed the postcards on the table.
Mara touched them.
“She kept them.”
“Yes,” Rachel said. “We found them in her case.”
Mara’s face changed.
Fear returned.
“She’ll come.”
Detective Harris leaned forward.
“She can’t reach you here.”
Mara looked at me.
“You don’t know Celeste.”
I whispered, “I do.”
That quieted the room.
Mara pulled me closer.
“I’m sorry.”
“No,” I said. “Don’t.”
She pressed her forehead to mine.
“I will say it anyway until you believe none of this was your fault.”
That night, we stayed in a protected family room arranged by the shelter.
I slept between my mother and Sophie.
Elliot slept in a chair by the door.
At some point, I woke and saw him staring at his phone.
His face had gone pale.
“What is it?” Mara asked softly.
He handed the phone to Rachel.
She read the message and cursed under her breath.
Celeste had posted a video online.
She was crying.
Beautifully.
She said Elliot had found a child and forced Mara, a mentally unstable woman, to claim her.
She said the Harper fortune was under attack.
She said Sophie was in danger.
Then she held up a document.
A custody petition.
Rachel’s face hardened.
“She’s going after Sophie.”
Sophie woke when she heard her name.
“What?”
Elliot crossed to her.
“No one is taking you.”
But his voice shook.
Mara held me tighter.
Detective Harris stepped into the room with her phone already at her ear.
Rachel stood.
“Then we end this publicly.”
Elliot looked at her.
“How?”
May you like
Rachel pointed at the postcards.
“With everything Celeste buried.”
