Chapter 2 - The Name Martha Would Rather Die Than Hear
Martha grabbed the cassette recorder with both hands.
“Turn it off, Victor!”
Her bandaged palm struck the machine, sending it across the desk.
The cassette kept playing.
Through a wash of static came Lorenzo Marino's voice.
“Her name was Evelyn—”
Martha pulled the cord from the wall.
Silence filled the study.
Victor stared at her.
Isabella stood beside the fireplace, her face pale.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Victor spoke.
“You've been in my house for thirty-seven years, Martha. I've trusted you with my daughter. I've trusted you with everything that matters to me.”
His voice hardened.
“Who is Evelyn?”
Martha gripped the edge of the desk.
“Evelyn Bennett.”
The name meant nothing to Victor.
But Isabella's expression changed.
“That's the name on the hospital bracelet,” she whispered.
Victor turned.
“What bracelet?”
Isabella opened her purse and removed a narrow yellowed strip of plastic.
A newborn identification bracelet.
The faded writing read:
BABY BOY BENNETT — OCTOBER 17, 1978.
Victor reached for it.
His daughter hesitated.
“Isabella.”
She placed it in his hand.
He examined the tiny piece of plastic.
For forty-seven years, he had believed he was born in a private hospital outside Philadelphia on October 18, 1979.
His father had celebrated that date every year.
Now he was holding evidence of a different birthday.
And a different mother.
“Where did you find this?”
“In Grandpa's nursery compartment.”
“Why didn't you give it to me?”
Isabella looked toward Martha.
“Because she knew about it.”
Victor slowly raised his eyes.
Martha was trembling.
“What happened in that hospital?”
She pulled out a chair.
For the first time Victor could remember, the elderly housekeeper sat down in his presence without asking permission.
“I was twenty-one,” she began. “I worked evenings at St. Catherine's Hospital. Laundry, cleaning, whatever they needed.”
She swallowed.
“Your father brought two women there during a terrible storm.”
Victor waited.
“One was Evelyn Bennett. She was young, barely twenty. The other was Margaret Marino, your father's wife.”
“My mother.”
Martha shook her head.
“The woman you believed was your mother.”
Victor's jaw tightened.
Margaret had died when he was eight.
He remembered her perfume, her soft hands, and the way she sang while brushing his hair.
He remembered crying against his father's chest at her funeral.
“You're telling me Margaret wasn't my mother?”
“She raised you,” Martha said. “And she loved you.”
“That wasn't my question.”
Martha looked down.
“No. She didn't give birth to you.”
Isabella covered her mouth.
Victor's fingers closed around the bracelet.
“Then why was Evelyn giving birth in the same hospital as my father's wife?”
Martha looked toward the recorder.
“Because Margaret had lost another pregnancy. Your father couldn't accept that she might never have a child.”
Victor felt something cold settle in his stomach.
“Did he take Evelyn's baby?”
Martha's silence answered him.
He stepped away from the desk.
Thirty-seven years of loyalty.
Forty-seven years of lies.
And the woman sitting before him had known.
“Was Evelyn alive when he took me?”
“Yes.”
Victor turned back.
“Did she agree?”
Martha began crying.
“No.”
The word seemed to drain every sound from the room.
Isabella whispered, “Oh, God.”
Victor looked at his daughter.
“You knew?”
“Not everything.”
“You knew enough to threaten Martha.”
Isabella stiffened.
“I thought she helped Grandpa steal you.”
“And that gave you the right to cut her hand and humiliate her?”
“I didn't cut her!”
“No. You just arranged the accident and ordered her to kneel in front of your guests.”
Isabella lowered her gaze.
Victor turned to Martha.
“Why did you stay?”
Martha wiped her face.
“Because there was a baby in that house who needed someone watching over him.”
“You weren't hired until I was ten.”
“I know.”
Something in her voice made Victor stop.
Martha pressed her lips together.
“I was there before that, Victor. Just not under the name you know.”
He stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
Before she could answer, Benjamin Cole appeared at the open study doorway.
The security chief had worked for Victor for nineteen years. He rarely entered a room without being summoned.
“Boss. We checked the remaining tapes.”
Victor didn't look away from Martha.
“And?”
“Seven cassettes were in Miss Isabella's car. The box originally held eight.”
Isabella looked up sharply.
“There were only seven when I found them.”
Benjamin placed a small wooden cassette case on the desk.
Its velvet lining showed eight rectangular impressions.
One was empty.
Victor examined the labels.
Most were numbered.
One space carried a handwritten date.
November 3, 1988.
Martha made a faint sound.
Victor heard it.
“What happened that day?”
She shook her head.
“Martha.”
“I can't.”
Victor crouched beside her chair.
“You've carried this long enough.”
Her eyes filled again.
“Your father discovered that Evelyn had found you.”
Victor's breathing slowed.
“She found me?”
Martha nodded.
“She had searched for ten years. She finally learned where you lived.”
“Did she come to the house?”
“Yes.”
Victor closed his eyes.
In November 1988, he had been ten years old.
He remembered a rainy afternoon.
A woman standing beyond the iron gates.
A cream-colored coat.
A face pressed close to the bars.
He remembered running toward her because she seemed frightened.
Then his father appeared and ordered the guards to take him inside.
Victor opened his eyes.
“That woman at the gate.”
Martha began sobbing.
“You remember?”
“She called me something.”
Martha could barely speak.
“She called you Daniel.”
Victor stared at the bracelet.
Daniel Bennett.
A name stolen before he was old enough to understand it.
“Where is she now?”
Martha looked away.
“Your father told me she disappeared after that night.”
“Told you?”
“I never saw her again.”
Victor stood.
“Benjamin. Find everything connected to November 3, 1988.”
Benjamin nodded.
Then Isabella spoke.
“I might know where the eighth tape is.”
Victor turned.
She reached into her purse again.
Not for a cassette.
For a small black-and-white photograph.
Its edges were scorched.
It showed a frightened young woman holding a toddler outside a modest brick house.
On the back, someone had written:
Evelyn and Daniel. Before Lorenzo found us.
Victor studied the child.
Dark hair.
A familiar crooked smile.
His own face.
But beneath the photograph was another inscription.
Three words in handwriting he recognized immediately.
Martha's handwriting.
My beautiful boys.
Victor looked up.
“Boys?”
Martha's face drained of color.
May you like
And Isabella whispered the question neither of them wanted to ask.
“Daddy... what happened to the other baby?”
