Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE FADED PHOTOGRAPH
“You expect me to believe you're my father?”
My voice sounded strangely calm.
Charles Whitaker stood beside his black SUV, holding a photograph that had apparently survived thirty-five years.
The woman in the picture had my eyes.
My cheekbones.
Even the small crooked smile I had always disliked about myself.
But resemblance wasn't proof.
And after what had happened inside my husband's house, I wasn't prepared to trust another stranger simply because he sounded sincere.
“I'm asking you to hear me out,” Charles said. “Nothing more.”
“Then tell me how you found me.”
He hesitated.
“Your photograph appeared in a Pasadena design magazine six weeks ago. You'd restored a historic house for a family I know. Eleanor saw your picture.”
My chest tightened.
“What happened?”
“She recognized you immediately.”
“That doesn't make sense. She hasn't seen me since I was a baby.”
Charles looked away.
“Your mother has been painting the same little girl's face for thirty-five years. Every year, she imagined what you might look like.”
Something inside me shifted.
But I wasn't ready to believe him.
“Why didn't she come herself?”
“Because she's afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That you'll think she abandoned you.”
I looked down at the photograph.
The woman was standing outside a hospital entrance, wearing a pale blue dress.
A man stood beside her.
Charles.
He looked decades younger, with thick dark hair and one arm protectively around her shoulders.
“She was pregnant when this was taken,” he explained. “Eight days before you were born.”
I suddenly remembered something.
“My adoptive mother told me I was born at St. Anne's Hospital in Pasadena.”
Charles went completely still.
“That's where Eleanor delivered you.”
I felt the ground shift beneath my feet.
For the first time, the story seemed possible.
Not certain.
But possible.
Charles opened the passenger door.
“There's a café two streets away. Public place. You can keep your phone, call anyone you trust, and leave whenever you want.”
I appreciated that he understood why I was frightened.
Twenty minutes later, we sat across from each other in a quiet café.
My suitcase remained beside my chair.
Charles ordered coffee but never touched it.
“Eleanor became seriously ill after your delivery,” he began. “There were complications. She needed emergency treatment.”
“What happened to me?”
“We were told you'd been transferred to another hospital for specialized care.”
“Then?”
“Three days later, they told us you had died.”
My hands turned cold.
“But the adoption records—”
“Say your mother voluntarily surrendered you.”
He shook his head.
“She never signed a surrender.”
I stared at him.
“Then somebody lied.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Charles slowly removed a thin silver chain from his jacket pocket.
Hanging from it was a tiny gold charm shaped like a five-pointed star.
“Eleanor bought this before you were born. She wore one just like it.”
My breath caught.
Because I owned a nearly identical charm.
My adoptive mother, June Foster, had given it to me on my eighteenth birthday.
She said it had arrived with me when I was adopted.
For years, I had kept it in a little jewelry box.
I had almost forgotten about it.
Now I couldn't stop staring.
Charles noticed.
“You've seen one before.”
I nodded.
“My mother gave me something like that.”
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them, tears had gathered along his lower lashes.
“Eleanor always said she'd find that necklace someday.”
I swallowed hard.
“Why did you wait so long?”
“We didn't. We spent years chasing incorrect records, closed agencies, and addresses that led nowhere. Your name was changed. Your birth date was recorded incorrectly.”
He leaned forward.
“But there's something else you need to know.”
“What?”
“The hospital didn't handle your adoption directly. A private placement organization did.”
He took out a second photograph.
It showed three women standing beside a hospital reception desk.
One was Eleanor.
Another wore a nurse's uniform.
The third woman was younger, perhaps thirty, with carefully styled blonde hair and a familiar, self-satisfied smile.
I knew that face.
I had seen it across eleven Thanksgiving dinners.
Eleven Christmas celebrations.
And just that morning, when she'd placed my suitcase outside her son's house.
My fingers began trembling.
“Charles,” I whispered, “who is that woman?”
He studied the picture.
“She worked for the placement agency. Her maiden name was Caldwell.”
I turned the photograph over.
Someone had written three names in faded blue ink.
Eleanor Whitaker. Margaret Ellis. Rebecca Caldwell.
The café seemed to tilt around me.
Rebecca Caldwell.
Now Rebecca Montgomery.
My mother-in-law.
The woman who had spent eleven years telling me I wasn't worthy of being a mother.
And suddenly, I remembered something Rebecca had said on my wedding day.
Some women should be grateful anyone chose them.
I looked at Charles.
“She's the woman who threw me out of my house this morning.”
His expression changed.
And for the first time since meeting him, I saw genuine fear.
“Mariana,” he said quietly, “does Rebecca know you were adopted?”
“Yes.”
He reached across the table but stopped before touching my hand.
May you like
“Then we need to find out exactly what she knows.”
Because the woman who had destroyed my marriage might also know who destroyed my first family.
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