Chapter 3 - CELESTE FOUND HER VERSION FIRST
By midnight, three different versions of me existed online.
MYSTERY WAITRESS MAY BE LOST VALE HEIRESS.
BOSTON MOB FAMILY REUNITED BY CHILD BALLET PRODIGY.
MILLION-DOLLAR DANCE BET EXPOSES FAMILY SECRET.
Lucy was asleep beside me in our apartment in Dorchester while I sat on the kitchen floor reading strangers invent my life.
My employer suspended me from events involving Vale Foundation clients.
Not fired.
Suspended.
The catering company didn't want reporters following me into weddings and corporate dinners.
That was a real consequence.
My rent did not care that I might be related to a wealthy family.
Neither did my electric bill.
At 1:13 a.m., another clip appeared.
Celeste.
Someone had recorded her outside the ballroom.
“This woman came into a private event through staff access,” she said. “Now she's claiming some connection to the Vale family. Adrian is being compassionate, but people should be careful about opportunists.”
I watched it twice.
I had never claimed anything.
I had tried to leave.
By morning, Celeste's version had spread farther than the dance.
Then Adrian called.
“How did you get my number?”
“You gave it to the catering office when you filled out emergency-contact information for your daughter.”
That annoyed me.
He heard it.
“I shouldn't have used it. I'm sorry.”
The apology stopped me.
“What do you want?”
“To verify facts.”
“No press.”
“Agreed.”
“No bringing Lucy into this.”
“Agreed.”
“No DNA kit from some cousin at your house.”
A pause.
Then:
“That was strangely specific.”
“I watch television.”
He almost laughed.
Then became serious.
“We can use an independent laboratory chosen by counsel for both sides. Chain of custody. No private handling.”
I didn't answer.
“Emma, I'm not asking you to trust me.”
“Good.”
“I am asking whether you want to know who your mother was.”
That was harder.
After Mom died, I found almost nothing from her childhood.
No yearbooks.
No family photographs.
No childhood letters.
She claimed a storage unit had flooded years earlier.
I accepted it.
There had always been gaps.
I simply built love over them.
“Give me a day.”
Adrian agreed.
Then he added:
“Celeste shouldn't have spoken publicly.”
“She shouldn't have humiliated my child either.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He went quiet.
I ended the call.
That afternoon, I opened the battered cedar box containing my mother's papers.
Birth certificate:
ROSE MARIE BENNETT.
Rhode Island.
The paper looked legitimate.
But the certified copy had been issued when Mom was twenty-two.
Not at birth.
There was no original.
Behind it sat an envelope I'd never noticed because it was stuck beneath the lining.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Mom's handwriting.
If Emma ever asks why there are no pictures from before Boston, tell her some families love by holding too tightly.
No signature.
No explanation.
Then one sentence underneath:
The song belongs to Sofia too.
I sat there until Lucy came into the room asking for cereal.
May you like
My mother had known Sofia.
And whatever she had run from, she had expected someone else to find that message after she was gone.
