Chương 5
Rachel suspected he also needed her out of the apartment before he could be truly angry.
They walked Lily to the entrance together.
At the door, Lily hugged Daniel and then Rachel.
“Is Grandma coming?”
Rachel looked at her.
“Victoria?”
Lily nodded.
“I don’t know.”
“Can she?”
Daniel answered before Rachel could.
“Not today.”
Lily looked disappointed.
That surprised both of them.
In the elevator back upstairs, Daniel said, “She’s curious.”
“I know.”
“She isn’t scared of Victoria.”
“She was hit by a stranger last night.”
“A stranger who apologized.”
Rachel looked at him.
“That does not make it okay.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
They entered the apartment.
Daniel removed his coat.
“Victoria emailed me.”
Rachel’s stomach tightened.
“When did she get your email?”
“She didn’t. She found the firm website.”
Of course she had.
“What did she say?”
Daniel handed Rachel his phone.
The message was short.
Mr. Carter,
I have no intention of approaching Lily without the consent of her parents.
I would like to understand what happened to my daughter and whether Lily is biologically related to her.
I am willing to meet under whatever conditions make you comfortable.
Victoria Hale
Rachel read it twice.
“She called us her parents.”
“Yes.”
“That’s deliberate.”
“Yes.”
“You think she means it?”
“I think she is very good at writing emails.”
Daniel took the phone back.
“I replied.”
Rachel looked up.
“What did you say?”
“I said not to contact Lily or the school.”
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“You should have talked to me.”
He stared at her.
Then Rachel heard what she had just said.
She closed her eyes.
“Right.”
Daniel put the phone on the table.
“That may be the fastest apology you’ve ever owed me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
They drove to the bank separately.
Daniel wanted to know why.
Rachel said she did not know.
That was partly true.
At the bank, she requested the box while Daniel sat in a vinyl chair beneath a framed photograph of sailboats.
The box contained Evelyn’s letters, medical paperwork, copies of fertility documents, a flash drive, and an envelope Rachel had never opened.
Daniel pointed to it.
“What’s that?”
“She told me to open it when Lily asked about her.”
“Has Lily asked?”
“She did last night.”
Rachel sat at the small private viewing table.
Her hands shook.
Daniel noticed but did not reach for her.
She broke the seal.
Inside were six pages written in Evelyn’s narrow handwriting.
The first line made Rachel laugh.
If you have waited until she is thirty-five, I will haunt you.
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
Rachel handed him the page.
He read it.
To her surprise, he laughed too.
Then he kept reading.
Evelyn wrote to Lily.
Not like a dying woman attempting wisdom.
Like Evelyn.
She complained that Rachel bought terrible tomatoes in winter. She explained that the donor had been selected partly because his family medical history was boring.
She admitted she had wanted a daughter and then felt guilty for wanting anything specific.
She wrote that Rachel had carried Lily because Evelyn’s body could not.
She wrote that biology was not a debt.
Near the end, the handwriting became less steady.
If Victoria is in your life someday, I hope it is because she learned the difference between loving a person and managing one. She loved me. I need you to know that. She simply did not always know how to love me without arranging the furniture around me.
Daniel stopped.
Rachel looked away.
Evelyn continued:
Do not hate her for me.
Do not obey her for me either.
Those are both ways of letting a dead woman run your life, and I have done enough of that already.
Daniel finished the letter and placed it carefully on the table.
“Rachel.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She looked at him.
“She didn’t tell you to lie.”
Rachel’s eyes filled.
“No.”
“She told you what she was afraid of.”
“Yes.”
“You made the rest of the decision.”
“Yes.”
That was the part Rachel had spent six years avoiding.
Evelyn’s fear had become Rachel’s permission.
At first the lie had felt temporary.
Then Lily was born.
Then three months passed.
Then a year.
Then Rachel met Daniel.
Then Daniel loved Lily.
Then they became a family.
With each ordinary month, telling the truth became more dangerous because there was more truth to lose.
Daniel touched the flash drive.
“What’s on this?”
“Videos.”
“Of Evelyn?”
Rachel nodded.
“For Lily?”
“Some.”
Daniel leaned back.
“Have you watched them?”
“Not all.”
“Why?”
Rachel looked at the box.
“I got good at not opening things.”
Daniel nodded.
“That, I believe.”
They left the bank with copies of the documents.
Rachel kept the originals in the box.
Outside, Daniel said, “I want a lawyer.”
Rachel stiffened.
“For what?”
“To know what this means.”
“Victoria said she isn’t—”
“I don’t care what Victoria said. I want to know whether anything we did when I adopted Lily can be challenged.”
Rachel felt the old panic return.
Daniel saw it.
“This is exactly why you should have told me.”
“I know.”
“I’m not trying to take Lily away from you.”
“You don’t know what a lawyer is going to say.”
“No. That is what lawyers are for.”
They met one that afternoon.
Her name was Miriam Price. She wore red glasses and had the weary expression of someone whose professional life consisted mostly of other people insisting their families were simple.
She listened without interrupting for nearly twenty minutes.
Then she took off her glasses.
“I’m going to tell you what I know, and then I’m going to tell you what I need to verify.”
Rachel appreciated that immediately.
Miriam asked about the fertility clinic, the embryo documents, whether Evelyn had signed consent forms, whether Rachel had been designated as gestational carrier, what had been represented during Daniel’s adoption, and whether any document identified Evelyn by name.
Rachel answered.
Sometimes Miriam frowned.
May you like
Sometimes she simply wrote.
Daniel asked, “Can Victoria take Lily?”
