Chapter 10 - THE LETTER MY SISTER WAS NEVER MEANT TO READ
The morning after the gala, I woke to the smell of coffee and cinnamon toast.
For a moment, I forgot where I was.
Then I saw the pale curtains.
The flowers on the dresser.
And the little blue cardigan folded beside my bed.
I was home.
Not because a DNA test said I belonged there.
Because the people in that house had finally chosen to treat me like family.
I went downstairs and found Catherine standing at the kitchen counter.
She was trying to make pancakes.
The first three were burned.
The fourth had somehow folded in half.
When she saw me, she laughed nervously.
“I'm discovering that having a daughter doesn't automatically make me a good cook.”
I smiled.
“Naomi burned pancakes, too.”
Catherine's expression softened.
“Then maybe you can teach me how she fixed them.”
“She scraped off the dark parts and covered everything with strawberries.”
Catherine reached for the fruit bowl.
“Excellent advice.”
We ate breakfast together.
No expensive china.
No servants hovering.
Just two women learning how to be mother and daughter.
Robert joined us carrying an old photo album.
He had spent the night looking through the photographs Eleanor had kept locked away.
“This is the only picture I have of you smiling as a baby,” he said.
It showed me sitting in a wooden high chair.
My father, twenty-five years younger, leaned beside me.
There was flour on his nose.
I laughed.
“What happened?”
He smiled sadly.
“Your mother was teaching me to bake. I was terrible at it.”
Catherine looked over.
“You dropped the entire mixing bowl.”
Robert chuckled.
“I remember.”
For a few minutes, nobody mentioned Vivian.
Or the staircase.
Or the years we'd lost.
It was wonderful.
But the consequences of the past hadn't disappeared.
The foundation trustees had begun an independent review.
Several families had contacted the organization after hearing about St. Anne's.
Some wanted financial records.
Others wanted to know whether their adoption files had been handled honestly.
Robert agreed to cooperate fully.
Vivian's authority had been suspended, and investigators were examining the old placement records.
Chloe had also begun facing consequences.
She had posted a detailed public correction acknowledging that she'd falsely accused me.
She apologized directly to the staff members who had witnessed the incident.
And she agreed to participate in counseling, something Catherine had suggested without threatening her place in the family.
I appreciated those steps.
But I still locked my bedroom door at night.
Trust wasn't something a person could demand simply because they'd apologized.
Three days later, Chloe approached me in the library.
She was holding a cardboard box.
“Can I show you something?”
I closed my book.
“What is it?”
“Some old records from the foundation.”
I studied her.
“Did Dad ask you to bring them?”
“No. The archivist was sorting things, and she found a folder connected to my adoption.”
Chloe sat across from me.
“I thought you should see it.”
She opened the box.
Inside were several old photographs.
One showed Chloe as a toddler.
She had curly blond hair and wore a yellow dress.
I smiled despite myself.
“You were adorable.”
Chloe looked surprised.
“Thanks.”
Then she removed a faded folder.
The cover carried the name of St. Anne's.
My smile vanished.
“You were adopted through the same agency?”
Chloe nodded.
“I knew that much. But I didn't know Vivian handled the arrangements.”
I leaned forward.
“Chloe, that's important.”
“I know.”
She opened the folder.
Inside were ordinary placement records, medical summaries, and correspondence.
Then Chloe stopped at a small stack of envelopes.
Each one had been addressed to the Sterling family.
Each carried the same return address.
A woman named Rebecca Hart.
Chloe's hands started shaking.
“Who's Rebecca?” I asked.
“My birth mother.”
I stared at her.
“Are you sure?”
Chloe nodded.
“It's in the original placement summary.”
I picked up the first envelope.
It was dated twenty-one years earlier.
The handwriting was careful.
Almost formal.
I understand that my daughter has a new family. I am not asking to disturb her life. I only want to know whether she is happy.
I swallowed.
Chloe opened the second.
Then the third.
One letter included a tiny photograph of a young woman holding a newborn baby.
The woman had Chloe's eyes.
On the back, someone had written:
For my daughter, if she ever asks about me.
Chloe covered her mouth.
“Mom and Dad told me my birth mother never contacted the agency.”
I looked at the envelopes.
“Maybe they believed that.”
Chloe lifted the final letter.
It was dated fourteen years earlier.
The envelope had been returned unopened.
Across the front was a handwritten instruction.
Do not forward. Family requests no contact.
Beneath it were Vivian's initials.
Chloe began crying.
“She told me my mother didn't want me.”
I looked at my sister.
And I realized Eleanor's cruelty had reached further than we'd known.
I moved my chair beside Chloe.
For the first time, she didn't try to hide her tears.
“Sophia,” she whispered, “what if my birth mother spent all these years thinking I didn't want her?”
I held her hand.
“Then we find out what happened.”
She looked up.
“Would you help me?”
I thought of Naomi.
Of Catherine.
Of every letter that had never reached its destination.
“Yes,” I said.
But then Chloe turned over the last page of her adoption summary.
A notation had been added years after her placement.
It listed Rebecca Hart's inquiries.
There were fourteen of them.
And beside the final inquiry was a sentence that made my sister go completely still.
Birth mother continues to request contact. Child has not been informed.
May you like
Chloe stared at the words.
Then she whispered, “She was looking for me, too.”
