Chapter 2 - THE NUMBER I SWORE I'D NEVER CALL
“Your mother did WHAT to you?”
The woman's voice on the other end of the phone was so sharp that I pulled it away from my ear.
“Aunt Evelyn, please. I need you to listen before you say anything.”
For eight years, I had avoided calling my mother's older sister.
Now I was sitting in a hospital bed, seven months pregnant, with bruises forming across my stomach and a heart monitor recording every nervous movement I made.
And Evelyn Carter was the only person I trusted to tell me the truth.
“Where are you?” she demanded.
“At St. Mary's Hospital.”
“Is the baby alive?”
I closed my eyes.
“Yes. They checked her heartbeat. She's okay right now, but the doctors want to keep me overnight.”
There was silence.
Then Evelyn said something I would never forget.
“Sophia, did your mother push you into the swimming pool?”
I sat upright.
“How did you know there was a pool?”
“Answer me.”
“She hit me. I fell backward into it.”
Evelyn let out a shaky breath.
“Dear God. She's doing it again.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“What do you mean, again?”
But Evelyn wouldn't answer.
Instead, she asked whether I had told the hospital how I was injured.
I admitted that I'd initially said I slipped.
“Change that,” she said immediately. “Tell them exactly what happened. Every word. And don't leave that hospital with anyone your parents send.”
“Aunt Evelyn—”
“I'm coming.”
The call ended.
For several minutes, I stared at the blank screen.
My mother had always described Evelyn as bitter, controlling, and obsessed with money.
According to her, Evelyn had tried to steal from our family after my grandmother died.
I hadn't spoken to my aunt since I was twenty-one.
Yet she had recognized the circumstances of my injury before I explained them.
I pressed the call button.
When the nurse entered, I finally told her the truth.
“My mother struck me in the stomach,” I whispered. “And I fell into the swimming pool.”
Her expression changed.
She pulled up a chair.
“I'm glad you told me, Sophia.”
For the next twenty minutes, I answered questions I had spent my entire life being afraid to answer.
Yes, my mother had hurt me.
Yes, my father had refused to help.
Yes, my sister had watched.
And yes, the argument had been about money.
The nurse documented my account and notified the physician. With my agreement, hospital security and the appropriate authorities were contacted.
I expected to feel ashamed.
Instead, I felt something unfamiliar.
Relief.
At 9:14 that evening, my father called.
I almost ignored him.
Then I answered.
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“At the hospital.”
He sighed like I'd inconvenienced him.
“Sophia, your mother didn't mean to hurt you. You know how emotional she gets.”
“She punched a pregnant woman.”
“Don't exaggerate.”
“I was there, Dad.”
“So was I.”
The words hung between us.
He had just admitted that he saw what happened.
“Then you know I could have drowned.”
“You got out, didn't you?”
I looked down at the hospital bracelet around my wrist.
Something inside me went cold.
“I'm not transferring Clara twenty-five thousand dollars.”
My father's voice hardened.
“This is bigger than Clara. Your mother has made commitments.”
“What commitments?”
“Family matters. You'll understand when you're older.”
“I'm thirty-one.”
“And you're behaving like a selfish teenager.”
I ended the call.
Ten seconds later, a message arrived from Clara.
Mom says you're making a scene. If you report this, don't expect to be welcome at home again.
I read it twice.
Then I forwarded it to the nurse's secure contact number as instructed.
I was still staring at my phone when another notification appeared.
My banking app.
New sign-in attempt detected.
Location: My parents' neighborhood.
I opened the app.
Someone had tried to access the account holding my daughter's savings.
Three times.
My stomach turned.
Only one other person knew the answers to the old security questions.
My mother.
Years earlier, when I opened my first savings account, she'd helped me establish my online banking profile.
I'd changed my password since then.
But apparently, someone still believed they could get inside.
I immediately contacted the bank, reported the attempts, and requested additional security.
Then I checked my regular checking account.
The balance was lower than I expected.
Not by twenty-five thousand.
By exactly $2,400.
I opened the transaction history.
Three automatic transfers.
Eight hundred dollars each.
The destination was an account I recognized.
My mother's household account.
Except I had never authorized those transfers.
I had agreed to pay her electricity bill and property insurance directly, not send unrestricted monthly payments.
I scrolled farther back.
The transactions had begun eleven months earlier.
Eleven months.
My hands started shaking.
My parents weren't just asking for my daughter's money.
Someone had already been taking mine.
At 10:06, a familiar figure appeared outside my hospital room.
A woman with short silver hair, a navy raincoat, and a leather handbag worn smooth at the corners.
Aunt Evelyn.
She looked older than I remembered.
But when she saw me, her expression crumpled.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
She crossed the room and gently wrapped her arms around me.
For the first time that day, I cried.
Not because I was frightened.
Because somebody had finally asked whether I was okay.
Evelyn sat beside me while I explained everything.
The dinner.
The demand.
The punch.
The pool.
The attempted bank access.
She listened without interrupting.
When I showed her the unauthorized transfers, she went completely still.
“Eight hundred dollars,” she whispered.
“Every month.”
Evelyn opened her handbag.
From a small inside pocket, she removed an old photograph.
It showed my grandmother, my mother, Clara, and me standing beside that same swimming pool.
We couldn't have been more than ten.
My grandmother had her arms around both of us.
But someone had folded the photograph so that Clara and I were separated by a deep white crease.
“Your grandmother took this picture,” Evelyn said.
“I remember.”
“Do you remember what happened afterward?”
I shook my head.
Evelyn turned the photograph over.
Written in my grandmother's familiar handwriting were six words.
For Sophia. When she is ready.
Beneath the words was a date.
My twenty-first birthday.
“Aunt Evelyn, what is this?”
She looked toward the closed hospital door.
“Your grandmother left instructions about money intended for you and Clara. I believed your mother when she said she'd followed them.”
“What money?”
Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.
“The money your mother told you never existed.”
Before I could respond, she took a folded bank statement from her handbag.
On the first page was my name.
On the second was a withdrawal recorded shortly after my twenty-first birthday.
$186,400.
And beside the authorized signature was handwriting that looked exactly like mine.
Except I had never signed it.
Evelyn pointed to the last line.
“Sophia, that's not the part that frightens me.”
She turned the page.
“Look who witnessed the transaction.”
I read the name.
May you like
Clara.
And suddenly, the sister who had spent her whole life needing my help looked very different.
