“No.”
For the first time that night, I laughed.
Then the pounding started again.
This time it wasn’t on the door.
It was coming from the hallway.
A nurse ran into the room.
“There’s someone outside asking for Anna.”
Eleanor’s face changed.
“Who?”
The nurse looked nervous.
“Anna’s husband.”
I froze.
Anna had been married.
I hadn’t known.
A man stood in the hallway, pale and shaking.
He was barely thirty.
When he saw Lucy in my arms, he stopped.
Then he looked at Michael.
“You brought her here?”
Michael nodded.
The man walked into the room.
His eyes filled with tears.
Don’t miss
“She told me about you.”
I couldn’t speak.
He approached slowly.
“She said her mother deserved to know.”
I looked down at Lucy.
“She was going to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
He smiled sadly.
“Tonight.”
I closed my eyes.
She had intended to meet me. Instead, I had met her daughter.
The cruelest part was that we’d spent 22 years living only a few hours apart without knowing it.
Anna had grown up wondering why her biological mother didn’t want her.
I’d spent 22 years believing my baby had died.
And somewhere in between those two lives was a secret created by people who had decided they knew what was best for everyone else.
Michael sat beside me.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you yet.”
“I understand.”
“But thank you for bringing her.”
He nodded.
Eleanor sat beside me and touched Lucy’s tiny hand.
“She has Anna’s fingers.”
I looked closely.
She did.
The same long fingers.
The same little crease beside the thumb that I remembered from the photographs I’d later seen.
I hadn’t known Anna had those hands.
I hadn’t known anything about her.
But somehow, looking at Lucy felt like finding a missing piece of myself.
