Chapter 7 - THE BABY THEY SAID DIED
Hannah came with me.
Rebecca was sitting at her kitchen table when we arrived.
No makeup.
No perfect-house energy.
Mason was with his father.
She waited until we sat down.
Then said:
“I got pregnant.”
I stared at her.
“When?”
“Senior year.”
The father was her high-school boyfriend, Eric.
Dad was furious.
Mom cried for two days.
Rebecca was sent to stay with an aunt in Wisconsin before anyone at school could understand why her body was changing.
“You told me you had mono.”
“They told everyone that.”
“What happened to the baby?”
Rebecca’s face collapsed.
“A girl.”
Her hands started shaking.
“I held her once.”
Hannah reached across the table.
Rebecca touched her own temple.
“She had dark hair.”
“What happened?”
“They said she stopped breathing.”
I felt cold.
“When?”
“After delivery.”
“Did you see her afterward?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Funeral?”
“No.”
“Death certificate?”
“I was eighteen, Daniel.”
Her voice cracked.
“I was eighteen and terrified and Dad kept saying I had destroyed my future.”
Hannah asked carefully:
“What happened to Eric?”
“My parents paid for him to go to college in Arizona.”
“Paid?”
“So he’d stay away.”
Something about the story was wrong.
Not impossible.
Wrong.
The foundation payments to Elaine began that same year.
The false psychological report about me came six weeks later.
Rebecca’s image needed protection.
My identity needed weakening.
Two family stories changed almost simultaneously.
The next morning I asked Elaine:
“Did you ever see documentation that Rebecca’s baby died?”
Her silence lasted too long.
“No.”
“What did you see?”
“A request to correct attendance records.”
“From medical leave?”
“To family leave.”
“Why?”
“I was told it was private.”
The foundation had not merely funded Mason’s advantages.
It had funded edits to family history.
I drove to my parents’ house.
Mom opened the door.
I did not sit down.
“Where is Rebecca’s daughter?”
Her coffee cup fell from her hand.
It shattered on the tile.
That was the answer.
“She didn’t die.”
Mom started crying.
“She was eighteen.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“We were protecting her.”
“Where is the child?”
Dad entered from the study.
“Lower your voice.”
For the first time in my life, I did not.
“No.”
Then Rebecca stepped inside behind me.
My parents froze.
She had followed.
Her voice was barely audible.
“Where is my daughter?”
Mom collapsed into a chair.
Dad remained standing.
Finally:
“She was adopted.”
Rebecca stopped breathing.
The child had not died.
No tragedy.
No tiny funeral.
May you like
A decision.
And a lie designed to make a mother stop searching.
