She covered her mouth.
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
Eleanor looked at me.
“That doctor was my daughter’s father.”
The room went silent.
I looked between them.
“You’re saying…”
Eleanor nodded.
“My husband was the doctor who delivered your baby.”
I felt sick.
Michael took my hand.
I pulled it away.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I believed she was dead.”
“For 22 years?”
“I believed it.”
“Then how is Lucy here?”
Michael looked toward the baby.
“Because Lucy is your granddaughter.”
I stared at him.
Then at Eleanor.
Then back at Lucy.
The room seemed to shrink.
“My daughter?”
Eleanor nodded.
“Her name was Anna.”
The name hit me strangely.
I had heard it before.
Not from Eleanor.
From Michael.
Years ago.
Once, during an argument, he’d mentioned a woman named Anna who had worked at a hospital.
I’d forgotten about it.
Now I couldn’t.
“Anna knew?”
“She found out when she was 20.”
Eleanor explained that Anna had been raised by another family after the hospital records were altered.
Her father had convinced everyone that the newborn had died.
But Anna eventually discovered inconsistencies in her birth records.
She tracked down her biological mother.
Me.
Except by then, I had moved.
