In despair, I convinced my husband to adopt a baby girl no one had come back for—but the moment he saw the little gold cross resting against her chest, his face went white and he whispered, “I know that necklace.”
Chapter 2
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was Lydia fussing softly inside her towel.
I stared at Richard.
“Your daughter?”
He looked older all at once.
“I was twenty-one.”
“You had a daughter?”
“Eliza—”
“You’ve been married to me for eighteen years.”
“I know.”
“And you never told me?”
He stood.
“I was young. Her mother and I weren’t married. I had just started working for my uncle’s company and thought I was going somewhere.”
His voice became quieter.
“When she told me she was pregnant, I panicked.”
“What was her name?”
“Caroline.”
I pulled Lydia against my chest.
“What happened?”
“Caroline wanted to keep the baby. I didn’t.”
His shame became visible now.
“I told her I wasn’t ready to ruin my future.”
I flinched.
Richard closed his eyes.
“She died from complications after the delivery.”
“Oh my God.”
“I signed away my rights.”
“And the baby?”
“She went into foster care.”
My stomach turned.
“You abandoned your own daughter.”
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No defense.
Just the word.
“Her name was Grace.”
Richard reached toward the cross but stopped before touching it.
“I had it custom made. Her initials were engraved on the back. Grace Marie Whitmore.”
G.M.W.
I looked at Lydia.
“You think she’s related to you?”
“I don’t know.”
His voice broke.
“But that cross can’t be a coincidence.”
The next morning, we arranged a DNA test.
Those three days of waiting were unbearable.
Richard barely went to work. He sat beside Lydia’s crib and watched her sleep as though he could identify generations in the shape of her nose.
I felt something uglier.
Betrayal.
For eighteen years, I’d thought Richard and I had shared the tragedy of losing our only child.
But he had another child.
A living daughter somewhere in the world.
And he’d chosen not to know her.
When the results arrived, I made Richard open the envelope.
He read the page.
Then read it again.
“No.”
“What?”
He handed it to me.
The test showed no biological relationship.
Zero probability.
Lydia was not his granddaughter.
Richard sank into a chair.
“That’s impossible.”
“The lab is reliable.”
“But the cross—”
“Then the cross came to her another way.”
Richard stared toward the nursery.
“I need to know how.”
So did I.
Lydia’s surrender paperwork listed her birth mother as Hannah Fields, twenty-one years old. There was no current address, but an older mailing address appeared in a social-services record from Cape Cod.
Under normal circumstances, I would never have crossed that boundary.
But nothing about our circumstances felt normal.
With help from the appropriate caseworker, we arranged contact.
Hannah agreed reluctantly.
She lived in a weather-beaten house near the coast with peeling paint and a porch that leaned noticeably toward the road.
When she opened the door, I saw a young woman who looked exhausted before she’d had enough years to deserve it.
Her pink hair had grown out brown at the roots. She wore an oversized sweatshirt and kept her arms folded protectively across herself.
“You brought him?”
She nodded toward Richard.
“I thought we should both come.”
“I don’t want Lydia back.”
The bluntness startled me.
“I didn’t say you did.”
Hannah’s jaw tightened.
“I can’t take care of her.”
“We’re not here to pressure you.”
“Then why are you here?”
Richard removed the cross from his pocket.
Hannah’s face changed immediately.
“Where did you get this?”
“From Lydia.”
“I mean before.”
Hannah looked at the floor.
“It belonged to Maggie.”
Richard went completely still.
“Who?”
“Margaret Morgan. Everybody calls her Maggie.”
Hannah allowed us inside.
The house smelled of damp wood and old coffee. She sat on a milk crate while Richard and I took the battered couch.
“Maggie and I grew up in the same group home,” Hannah explained. “She was older by a few months. We were basically sisters.”
“Where did she get the cross?” Richard asked.
“She always had it.”
“Since childhood?”
Hannah nodded.
“She hated it.”
“Why?”
“Because she said her father gave it to her before abandoning her.”
Richard leaned forward.
“What did she say about him?”
“That he was rich. Or became rich. That he cared more about his career than having a baby.”
Hannah looked between us.
“Why?”
Richard’s face had turned gray.
“Her birth name was Grace.”
Hannah stared.
“You know Maggie?”
Richard could barely get the words out.
“I think she’s my daughter.”
The room became painfully quiet.
Hannah looked toward me.
Then back at him.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Where is she?”
“Boston.”
Richard’s breath caught.
“She goes to art school there.”
Hannah took the cross from his palm.
“When I found out I was pregnant, I told Maggie I couldn’t do it. I said I’d leave the baby at the hospital.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Maggie gave me this.”
“Why?”
“She said somebody once gave it to her because they were leaving. Maybe this time it could mean somebody was staying.”
I had to look away.
Hannah’s voice shook.
“I put it around Lydia’s neck before I signed the papers.”
Richard covered his face.
The cross had traveled from a father abandoning his newborn daughter to that daughter helping another frightened young woman surrender hers.
Two generations.
Two abandoned babies.
One piece of gold carrying all of it.
On the drive home, Richard said almost nothing.
Halfway back to Boston, he finally whispered, “I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“When Hannah said Maggie Morgan.”
He gripped the steering wheel.
“Her adoptive surname was Morgan. I learned that years ago.”
I turned toward him.
“You knew where Grace was?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you knew her name changed.”
“Yes.”
“You could have looked.”
“Yes.”
Anger burned through me.
“And you didn’t.”
He swallowed.
“No.”
“Why?”
He stared through the windshield.
“Because every year I waited made the next year harder.”
“That’s cowardice.”
“I know.”
I expected him to argue.
He didn’t.
The next morning, I began searching for Margaret Morgan.
Three days later, we found her.
She was twenty-seven and lived near the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, where she studied illustration while working part-time at a bookstore.
We stood outside her apartment for five full minutes before Richard finally knocked.
A young woman opened the door.
She had Richard’s green eyes.
The resemblance was so immediate that even I stopped breathing.
Maggie looked at me first.
Then at him.
Her face emptied.
“You.”
Richard whispered, “Grace?”
Her expression snapped shut.
“Don’t call me that.”
She tried to close the door.
Richard stepped back instead of stopping her.
“Please. I only came to apologize.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Twenty-seven years late.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
Her voice rose.
“My mother died, and you signed me away before she was even buried.”
Richard lowered his head.
“I know.”
“I grew up in four foster homes before I was ten.”
His eyes filled.
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t want to know.”
That hit him harder.
Maggie’s hands were shaking.
“You were out building businesses and buying houses while I kept a garbage bag packed because every place I lived could send me away.”
Richard started crying.
Silently.
Maggie stared at him without sympathy.
“You don’t get to cry.”
“You’re right.”
She flinched, apparently expecting an excuse.
Richard continued.
“I was selfish. I was afraid. I cared more about what having a child would cost me than what abandoning one would cost you.”
Maggie’s jaw tightened.
“I don’t forgive you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Then why are you here?”
Richard looked at her.
“Because I’m sorry.”
The door slammed.
