Chapter 8 - THE GIRL WHO WAS GIVEN ANOTHER NAME
Mara pulled her hand away.
“No.”
Eleanor looked at her with tears in her eyes.
“Please listen.”
“No. My mother was Caroline Ellis. She raised me. She loved me.”
“Both things can be true.”
Mara stood so abruptly that the chair tipped backward.
Adrian immediately moved toward her.
“Don't touch me.”
He stopped.
The room went silent.
Mara pressed both hands against her stomach.
She was carrying a child.
Adrian's child.
And the people standing before her were suggesting that she might also be Adrian's daughter.
The thought was unbearable.
Adrian understood the horror on her face.
He looked at Eleanor.
“Tell her the truth. All of it.”
Eleanor swallowed.
“Caroline believed you were Grace because of a bracelet.”
Mara stared.
“What bracelet?”
“The silver one with the stars.”
Mara shook her head.
“I never had anything like that.”
“Yes,” Eleanor whispered. “You did. Caroline kept it in a cedar box.”
Mara remembered the box.
Her mother had stored old photographs, her wedding veil, and childhood keepsakes inside it.
After Caroline died, Mara had packed everything into a storage unit.
She had never opened most of the boxes.
Eleanor continued.
“Caroline found you through a private adoption arrangement. Walter handled the paperwork. She believed she was taking in an abandoned child.”
Mara felt faint.
“Then why did she think I was Grace?”
“Because she recognized the bracelet.”
Adrian's face tightened.
“And she never told me?”
“She didn't know how. By the time she understood what might have happened, Walter had threatened her.”
Mara looked at her husband.
He looked as devastated as she felt.
But he spoke carefully.
“We don't know whether any of this is true.”
Eleanor lowered her eyes.
“No.”
“And until we do, nobody makes assumptions about Mara's identity.”
Mara looked at him.
It was the first useful thing anyone had said in several minutes.
Grant stepped forward.
“The property transfer might be a trap.”
Adrian nodded.
“Then we don't go there blind.”
Mara reached for her purse.
“I'm going to my storage unit.”
Adrian turned.
“Mara—”
“My mother left me something. I want to see it.”
“I'll drive.”
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
The storage facility was in Queens.
For years, Mara had paid the monthly fee from a small account Adrian didn't control.
She hadn't told him about it.
Now he stood beside her as she rolled up the metal door.
Inside were the remains of her previous life.
A narrow wooden dresser.
Three cardboard boxes.
An old sewing machine.
A lamp with a cracked shade.
Adrian looked around.
“You kept all this?”
Mara nodded.
“It was mine.”
He didn't ask why she'd hidden it.
He knew.
They found the cedar box inside a suitcase.
Mara opened it carefully.
The smell of lavender rose from the old fabric.
Inside lay photographs, letters, a child's knitted sweater, and a silver bracelet.
Tiny stars ran around its surface.
Adrian picked it up with trembling fingers.
“It matches Rose's.”
Mara looked at the engraving.
Inside the clasp were two letters.
M.E.
She stared.
“My initials.”
Adrian shook his head.
“Or someone wanted them to be.”
Beneath the bracelet was a sealed envelope.
Caroline's handwriting covered the front.
For Mara, when she is ready to ask about the day she came home.
Mara sat on the floor.
Her hands shook so badly Adrian offered to open it.
She refused.
“This is mine.”
He nodded.
She broke the seal.
Inside was a four-page letter.
Caroline had written it during her final illness.
The first sentence made Mara cry.
My darling girl, being your mother was the greatest privilege of my life.
She continued reading.
Caroline described adopting a frightened three-year-old through a private arrangement handled by Walter Bell.
The little girl barely spoke.
She cried whenever she saw a silver watch.
She refused to sleep without a blue blanket.
For months, Caroline sat beside her bed until she felt safe.
Mara remembered that blanket.
She remembered the soft fabric against her cheek.
And suddenly, she remembered something else.
A man in a gray suit standing outside a white house.
A pocket watch swinging from his hand.
Her breathing quickened.
Adrian crouched beside her.
“Mara?”
She continued reading.
Caroline had eventually discovered the adoption paperwork was falsified.
She began searching for the child's birth family.
Then she learned about Grace Shaw.
The age matched.
The bracelet matched.
But something troubled Caroline.
The adoption file contained no birth certificate.
No hospital record.
Only Walter's signed statement.
Caroline wrote:
I came to believe you were Grace, but I could never prove it. I was afraid of telling you something that might not be true. More than that, I was afraid Walter would take you away.
Mara began crying harder.
Adrian sat beside her.
He didn't try to stop her tears.
The final paragraph read:
If you ever find the truth, please don't let anyone tell you that being adopted made you less mine. You were my daughter in every way that mattered. I loved you from the first night you fell asleep holding my finger.
Mara pressed the letter against her chest.
For several minutes, she couldn't speak.
Adrian remained beside her.
Finally, she whispered, “She was my mother.”
“Yes,” Adrian said.
“Whatever anyone says.”
“Yes.”
Mara looked at him.
“And we still don't know who I was before.”
“No.”
Grant's footsteps sounded outside the unit.
“I found the original transfer record.”
Adrian stood.
“What does it say?”
“Walter used a trust account to purchase the Vermont property in Mara's name.”
“Why?”
Grant hesitated.
“There's an occupancy requirement. Someone has to appear there before the end of the month or the property reverts to the original trust.”
Mara frowned.
“Who is the beneficiary?”
Grant looked at her.
“Grace Shaw.”
Adrian's expression sharpened.
“So Walter wants Mara to establish ownership as Grace.”
“That's what it looks like.”
Mara stood.
“Then we go.”
Adrian shook his head.
“It's a trap.”
“I know.”
“Mara—”
“I spent five months hiding under a winter coat because I was afraid of what might happen if anyone saw me.”
She looked at him.
“I'm done hiding.”
Adrian studied her.
Then nodded.
“Not alone.”
That evening, Grant arranged for an independent investigator to review the property, while Helen searched through Rebecca's old belongings.
The next morning, they drove toward Vermont.
Mara held Caroline's letter in her lap.
Adrian drove.
Neither spoke much.
Three miles from the property, they stopped at a small country store.
An elderly woman behind the counter recognized the address.
“The Bell house?”
Mara nodded.
The woman's expression changed.
“You shouldn't go there.”
Adrian stepped forward.
“Why?”
“Because a woman came through yesterday asking about a pregnant girl named Mara.”
Mara felt cold.
“What woman?”
The shopkeeper reached beneath the counter.
“She left this in case you came.”
It was a child's drawing.
A house.
Three stick figures.
One small figure holding a blue blanket.
Across the bottom, written in an adult's careful hand, were five words.
I REMEMBER YOU, LITTLE GRACE.
Mara turned the paper over.
There was a photograph attached.
An elderly woman stood beside the Vermont house.
She held a silver pocket watch.
And standing next to her was a teenage boy.
Daniel.
But the face that made Adrian stagger wasn't Daniel's.
It was the elderly woman's.
He whispered, “Rose?”
The shopkeeper shook her head.
“No, sir.”
“That woman calls herself Rebecca Bell.”
Mara stared.
Rebecca Shaw had supposedly died eight years earlier.
May you like
Then the shopkeeper added:
“She said to tell you the real Grace is still waiting inside the house.”
