Dr. Evans called four days later.
I was in the kitchen making coffee when her name appeared on my phone. I answered immediately.
“Did you find it?”
“Yes.”
Her voice was cautious.
“Where?”
“In an archive connected to the old hospital.”
I gripped the counter.
“And the pathology report?”
“It exists.”
My pulse quickened.
“Under my name?”
“No.”
She paused.
“It was filed under Margaret Harris.”
I wrote the name down even though I already knew it.
“Why would Margaret have my pathology report?”
“That is what we need to determine.”
I drove to Dr. Evans's office that afternoon. She had printed every document she could locate and arranged them in chronological order. The pathology report confirmed the tumor had been benign. There was no cancer, no serious disease, and nothing in the sample itself that should have required secrecy.
But the tissue had been logged twice.
The first sample had gone through the normal hospital process.
The second had been removed from the hospital system and sent to an outside laboratory.
“Was it tested?” I asked.
“There is no surviving laboratory report.”
“So we don't know.”
“Not yet.”
She slid another sheet toward me.
A handwritten instruction had been attached to the transfer.
Keep available for genetic comparison if required.
I stared at it.
“Why would someone need genetic material from me?”
“I don't know.”
“My father?”
“Possibly.”
“Dr. Harris?”
“Possibly.”
“Robert?”
“Also possible.”
That answer frustrated me, but I understood why she was careful. We had spent weeks learning that assumptions were dangerous.
I left with copies of everything and called Michael from the parking lot.
He answered almost immediately.
“What happened?”
“Did my father ever mention genetic testing?”
Silence.
“Michael?”
“Yes.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“After the children were born.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to establish who was biologically related to whom.”
I stared through the windshield.
“Of course Lily is my daughter.”
“I know.”
“Then why test her?”
Michael didn't answer.
I waited.
“There was another child.”
My hand went cold around the phone.
“What?”
“We didn't know whether the baby transferred from the hospital was Lily.”
I stopped breathing.
“Michael.”
“There were two girls.”
“Twins?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
The noise of the parking lot disappeared.
All those years.
Two babies.
Two girls.
Two lives separated before either could know the other existed.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“We didn't know where the other child went.”
“You knew there was another.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since shortly after they were born.”
I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel.
“You let me believe I had lost one baby.”
“We believed one child had died.”
“But you knew there were two.”
“We didn't know which one survived.”
The distinction was devastating and, somehow, important.
I drove home.
Lily and Jake were sitting at the dining table sorting through old photographs. Lily looked up when I entered.
“You look pale.”
I put my purse down.
“There may have been another baby.”
She stared at me.
“What?”
“Another girl.”
Jake looked from me to Lily.
“Twins?”
I nodded.
Lily's face changed.
“How could nobody know?”
“The records were changed.”
“Then how do we know this is true?”
“We don't.”
I placed the transfer documents on the table.
Lily read them slowly.
“Do you think she survived?”
“I don't know.”
“Could she be alive?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me for several seconds.
“Then we have to find her.”
Her answer was immediate.
I nodded.
“We will.”
The genetic sample might help. If it still existed, it could establish whether Lily was biologically related to me. It might also provide a reference for identifying the second child.
That evening, Thomas came to the house.
He listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he sat back.
“I never knew about the twins.”
“Did my father?”
“Yes.”
“Did Margaret?”
Thomas hesitated.
“She suspected.”
“Where is she?”
“Canada.”
I stared.
“How long?”
“Years.”
“Can we reach her?”
“I'll try.”
The next morning, Thomas called.
“I found her.”
My heart jumped.
“Where?”
“A small town outside Toronto.”
“Will she speak to us?”
“She agreed to a video call.”
We gathered in the study.
Margaret appeared on the screen.
She looked older than I remembered from the hospital basement. Her hair was almost entirely gray, and she wore a cardigan buttoned to her throat.
“I knew this day would come,” she said.
I didn't waste time.
“Were there twins?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Lily leaned toward the screen.
“Where is my sister?”
Margaret's expression crumpled.
“I don't know.”
My throat tightened.
“But you knew she existed.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Two girls were born.”
“Were they both alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then why were they separated?”
Margaret looked directly at me.
“Because Robert ordered it.”
My hand tightened around the edge of the desk.
“Why?”
“He wanted control of your father's trust.”
“But one child was enough.”
“Not under the original wording.”
Thomas leaned toward the screen.
“What did the trust require?”
Margaret answered carefully.
“The surviving child of Susan Miller.”
I stared.
“Surviving child.”
“Yes.”
“If both girls were alive, what did Robert plan?”
Margaret's voice became quieter.
“He planned to declare one of them legally dead.”
A chill moved through me.
“So he wanted one child erased.”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“I never knew.”
“Where were they taken?”
“Different facilities.”
“Who arranged that?”
Margaret looked down.
“Dr. Harris.”
Daniel's father.
The man whose name had followed us through every stage of the story.
“Why would he do it?”
“He believed Robert would kill them if he didn't separate them.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did you keep records?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Margaret hesitated.
“I sent them to your father.”
“My father is dead.”
“I know.”
“Then where are they?”
She looked toward the screen as if the answer frightened her.
“Your father gave them to Michael.”
I turned.
Michael was standing behind me.
He looked pale.
“I don't have them.”
Margaret shook her head.
“You carried them out of the hospital.”
“I carried one file.”
“Two.”
Michael froze.
I stood.
“You have the records.”
“I thought they were destroyed.”
“Where did you put them?”
He stared into the distance.
Then his expression changed.
“The storage unit.”
“What storage unit?”
“The one we rented after the fire.”
I frowned.
“The fire at my father's office?”
“Yes.”
“You told me that was an electrical accident.”
“It was.”
“Was it?”
He didn't answer.
Thomas stood.
“Michael.”
“I don't know.”
We drove to the storage facility that afternoon.
The manager searched through old records until he found the unit number. The lock was rusty. When it finally opened, dust rolled across the concrete floor.
Old furniture stood against one wall.
Boxes were stacked nearly to the ceiling.
A broken desk sat beneath a sheet.
We searched for hours.
Then I noticed a metal case buried beneath water-damaged folders.
The lock had already been broken.
Inside were two files.
One had my name.
The other contained a single word.
Twin.
My hands shook as I opened it.
The first document was a birth certificate.
Mother: Susan Miller.
Father: Unknown.
Female.
Date of birth: July 19, 2008.
Then I saw the name.
Emma Harris.
I couldn't breathe.
Lily came beside me.
“That's her.”
Inside the file were photographs.
A newborn.
A five-year-old girl.
A ten-year-old.
A teenager.
Every photograph showed the same face developing through childhood.
She had my eyes.
The same little mark near the eyebrow.
The same shape of mouth Lily carried.
At the back of the file was a current address.
I read it twice.
Then again.
“She isn't gone.”
Michael looked over my shoulder.
“She has been living less than two hours away.”
Lily touched the photograph.
“My whole life?”
I nodded.
Jake stared at the address.
“Then what are we waiting for?”
I closed the file.
For eighteen years, I had believed one of my daughters was dead.
Now I had a name.
A face.
An address.
And one chance to knock on the door of the life she had been given without me.
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: We Found Emma Living Under Another Family’s Name, and the Letters Waiting Inside Her Guardian’s House Finally Told Us Why She Had Been Kept Away
The Date My Doctor Mentioned Should Have Meant Nothing, Yet It Opened a Door My Husband Had Spent Eighteen Years Keeping Locked
Part 10 of 12
