Chapter 3 - THE LETTER MY PARENTS NEVER SAW
“Don't open it yet.”
Evelyn's warning stopped my fingers.
I was already lifting the flap.
“Why?”
“Because once you read what's inside, you need to know whether your parents recognize it.”
I looked at her.
“You think they're involved?”
“I think somebody has spent twenty-five years deciding what your parents are allowed to know.”
That frightened me more than anything Chloe had done.
The following morning, Evelyn arranged for Robert and Catherine Sterling to meet us in a private room at the motel.
I refused to return to their mansion.
Robert arrived wearing the same charcoal suit he'd worn when he threw me out.
Catherine followed several steps behind.
Her eyes were swollen.
Neither approached me.
Robert looked at the tablet.
“Evelyn said there's a recording.”
“There is,” I answered.
“Before we watch it—”
“No.”
My voice surprised even me.
“For eleven days, I listened to everyone in your house tell me how grateful I should be. How lucky I was. How patient I needed to be with Chloe.”
Robert shifted uncomfortably.
“Now you're going to listen to me.”
I turned the tablet toward him.
The recording played.
Nobody spoke.
When Chloe deliberately lowered herself onto the staircase, Catherine made a small, wounded sound.
When I appeared in the recording, standing nowhere near her, Robert gripped the edge of the table.
Then came the moment he grabbed my arm.
The moment he pointed toward the entrance.
The moment he ordered me away.
Robert slowly sat down.
“My God.”
I switched off the screen.
“You didn't even ask me what happened.”
“Sophia—”
“You told me not to call you Dad.”
His expression crumpled.
“I was angry.”
“You were certain.”
That silenced him.
Catherine reached across the table.
I pulled my hands away.
Not because I wanted to hurt her.
Because I wasn't ready to be touched.
“There's something else,” Evelyn said.
She placed the old envelope in front of Catherine.
The moment my mother saw the handwriting, her face changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“Chloe removed it from Eleanor's keepsake box,” Evelyn answered.
Catherine touched the envelope with trembling fingers.
“St. Anne's.”
Robert leaned forward.
“What is it?”
Catherine stared at him.
“Robert, remember the children's agency in Pennsylvania?”
He frowned.
“The one Mother investigated?”
Catherine nodded.
“Your mother told us it closed after a fire. She said their records were destroyed.”
Robert glanced at the envelope.
“That was twenty-three years ago.”
“Yes,” Catherine whispered.
She opened it.
Inside was a single folded letter.
The original paper had yellowed, but the writing remained legible.
Catherine began reading.
Halfway through, she covered her mouth.
Robert took the letter.
I watched his expression change.
The agency had reported receiving an infant matching the description of their missing daughter.
The child had arrived with a knitted blue cardigan.
One button had been replaced by a pearl.
And a small scarlet cross had been stitched inside the left sleeve.
Catherine began shaking.
“I made that cardigan.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“When you were born. I knitted it while I was pregnant.”
Her voice broke.
“One button fell off. I couldn't find a matching one, so I used a little pearl from my mother's sewing box.”
Robert closed his eyes.
“Catherine...”
She wasn't listening.
“I stitched a red cross inside the sleeve so I could recognize it if the laundry mixed up your clothes.”
She turned toward me.
“Nobody outside our family knew about that sweater.”
I felt the room tilt.
The letter ended with a request for the parents to contact the agency immediately.
But beneath the original signature was another notation.
Reviewed and handled through Sterling Family Foundation.
The initials were unmistakable.
Vivian E. Sterling.
“My sister handled this?” Robert whispered.
Evelyn nodded.
“Apparently.”
Robert stood so abruptly his chair scraped backward.
“Vivian told me that agency had nothing.”
Catherine looked at him.
“No, Robert.”
Her voice became strangely calm.
“She didn't tell us they had nothing.”
She turned the letter around and pointed to a handwritten date.
“She told us she'd investigated St. Anne's six months before this letter was written.”
Robert stared at the date.
Then Catherine said something that made the room fall silent.
“Someone continued searching for Sophia after Vivian claimed the investigation was over.”
May you like
She looked directly at me.
“And whoever found you was trying to bring you home.”
