Chapter 4
Celeste talked because she was afraid.
Not of prison.
Of Ryan.
Detective Harris separated her from him.
Within an hour, she told us everything she claimed to know.
Ryan had confessed to her before their wedding that Thomas “had been placed elsewhere” after birth because he believed I was too emotionally weak to handle two children.
I almost vomited.
Thomas had not been a newborn.
He had been three.
Walking.
Talking.
Calling me Mommy.
But Ryan had rewritten even that.
According to Celeste, Ryan said a nurse arranged it.
A woman named Marla.
He said Thomas had medical problems.
He said giving him away had “saved the family.”
Saved us.
By destroying us.
I sat in the hallway while Harris took her statement.
Thomas came out from the medical room wearing clean clothes from the victim services closet.
Gray sweatpants.
A blue sweatshirt.
Too big.
He stopped when he saw me.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
I dropped to my knees.
“Never at you.”
“She used to get mad when I asked about you.”
“Marla?”
He nodded.
“She said you sold me.”
My lungs stopped.
“She said you kept Emily because she was easier.”
Emily made a wounded sound.
Thomas looked at her quickly.
“I didn’t believe it all the time.”
I pulled him close.
“She lied. I wanted you every day.”
He clung to me.
“I wanted you too.”
Harris came into the hallway.
“We have Marla’s last known address.”
“Where?”
“Rockford.”
Thomas stiffened.
“No.”
I held him tighter.
“She’s there?”
He shook his head.
“Not anymore. She moved when I ran.”
“When did you run?”
“Three days ago.”
My heart broke again.
Three days in the rain.
Three days hungry.
Three days alone in the city while his father worked in an office and lied.
“Why did you run?”
Thomas reached into the pocket of his new sweatshirt.
He pulled out a folded photo.
It was old.
Worn soft.
Me holding him as a toddler.
Emily asleep in my lap as a baby.
Ryan standing behind us.
His face had been scratched out.
“I found this in her locked drawer,” Thomas whispered. “I knew your face.”
My hands shook as I touched the picture.
“She kept photos?”
“A whole box.”
“Of us?”
“And papers. Hospital papers. Letters.”
“What letters?”
Thomas looked at Harris.
“The ones you sent me.”
I stared.
“I never sent letters. I didn’t know where you were.”
Thomas swallowed.
“Then someone wrote them pretending to be you.”
The room went silent.
“What did they say?” I asked.
His eyes filled.
“That you were sorry. That you couldn’t take me back. That I should obey Aunt Marla.”
Emily began crying.
I stood, shaking with a rage so deep it felt calm.
“Harris.”
“I know,” he said.
But he did not.
Not really.
No one could know what it was to have your child stolen twice.
First from your arms.
Then from his own belief that he was loved.
That night, DNA confirmed what my heart already knew.
Thomas was my son.
Harris told me gently.
I thought I would collapse.
Instead, I walked into the room where Thomas sat with Emily and said, “It’s official.”
His chin trembled.
“I’m really yours?”
May you like
I held out my hand.
“You always were.”
