Chapter 9 - The Woman Who Called Herself My Mother
I read the final sentence until the words lost their meaning.
Do not trust the woman who calls herself your mother.
Elena took the letter from me and examined the paper.
“This appears to be original,” she said.
“What arrangement?” I asked.
“We need the rest of the letter.”
“That is the rest.”
The page ended after the warning.
No explanation.
No signature beyond my grandfather’s initials.
Detective Bell instructed his team to photograph everything in the hidden room.
Ryan stood near the doorway, staring at me.
“Claire.”
“Don’t.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
But part of me already did.
There had always been things that felt wrong.
My mother never had photographs of herself pregnant with me.
She claimed she hated cameras.
My birth certificate had been replaced when I was twelve because the original was supposedly lost.
My mother said my blood type matched my father’s, although I later learned it did not.
Once, during a medical emergency in college, a nurse had commented that my family history did not align with a test result.
I forgot about it.
Families explain away inconsistencies.
Children accept the explanation because the alternative is too frightening.
Detective Bell asked whether I would consent to a DNA comparison.
“With whom?”
“Ryan first. Possibly Vanessa.”
Ryan immediately agreed.
We provided samples.
Results would take time.
Elena searched the hidden desk and found a small digital recorder.
The batteries were dead, but the device appeared undamaged.
A technician recovered six audio files.
The first contained only static.
The second recorded my father and Nathan arguing.
Nathan’s voice was older but recognizable.
“You were supposed to keep Claire away from the accounts.”
My father replied, “She never asked.”
“She’s asking now.”
“Because Vanessa got greedy.”
“Your entire family got greedy.”
“You took more than all of us.”
“It was mine before Edmund stole it.”
“Nothing was yours.”
“You know what Claire is worth.”
“She’s my daughter.”
Nathan laughed.
“No, Thomas. She was your assignment.”
The recording ended.
I felt the floor tilt beneath me.
Ryan grabbed my arm.
I pulled away.
“Play the next one,” I said.
The third file contained my mother’s voice.
She was speaking to someone who never answered.
“Claire is becoming suspicious. She asked about the photographs. Thomas says she remembers nothing, but I don’t believe him. Edmund always said memory returns through repetition. We should never have kept her in Briarwood.”
The fourth file was dated seven years earlier.
My father said, “She’s applying for the London position.”
Nathan replied, “Stop her.”
“How?”
“Diane knows how.”
Three days after the date on the recording, my mother had suffered a sudden health crisis.
I withdrew my London application to remain close to home.
Her tests later showed nothing serious.
The fifth file involved Derek.
“I can make Claire sign anything,” he said. “She never reads family paperwork.”
Nathan responded, “The signature must survive forensic review.”
Derek laughed.
“Vanessa practiced for six months.”
I remembered birthday cards, thank-you notes, and family forms Vanessa had asked me to sign.
She had not merely been collecting my signature.
She had been training herself to reproduce it.
The sixth recording was the shortest.
A man I could not identify said, “Edmund should have told Claire before he died.”
Nathan answered, “He tried.”
“What happened to the letter?”
“Diane found it.”
“And the child?”
A long pause followed.
Then Nathan said, “The child became the key.”
The file ended.
“What child?” Ryan asked.
No one answered.
Detective Bell received a message from his team.
He read it and looked toward me.
“Your mother is at Westbridge Hospital.”
“Why?”
“She was admitted after an apparent overdose.”
I stood.
“What did she take?”
“Prescription sedatives.”
“Did she leave a note?”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
Bell hesitated.
“It says she is sorry she replaced you.”
At the hospital, my mother lay unconscious beneath a thin white blanket.
My father was not there.
Vanessa stood outside the room, crying into Derek’s jacket, which she had brought from home and wrapped around herself.
When she saw me, she rushed forward.
“This is your fault.”
I stopped several feet away.
“No.”
“You called the police. You froze the accounts. You pushed her.”
“She took the pills.”
“Because you’re destroying everything.”
“What did she mean when she wrote that she replaced me?”
Vanessa stopped crying.
For one second, something appeared in her expression.
Recognition.
“You know,” I said.
“No.”
“You’ve heard something.”
“I haven’t.”
“Vanessa.”
She looked toward our mother’s room.
“When Lily was born, Mom got drunk.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she had already lost one daughter and would never lose another.”
“I’m standing here.”
“She wasn’t talking about you.”
The hospital corridor seemed to narrow.
“Who was she talking about?”
“I asked Dad the next morning. He said Mom had miscarried before you were born.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I did then.”
“And now?”
Before she could answer, the heart monitor inside my mother’s room began alarming.
Nurses rushed past us.
A doctor ordered medication.
Vanessa grabbed my hand.
For the first time since the nightmare began, she did not look entitled or angry.
She looked terrified.
“What if Mom isn’t your mother?” she whispered.
I watched through the glass as doctors fought to keep Diane alive.
Then my phone vibrated.
May you like
The DNA laboratory had completed an expedited sibling comparison.
Ryan and I shared no biological relationship.
