“They told you her baby died?” he asked.
The woman nodded, tears running down her face.
“My daughter Lucy was seventeen. Her father said the baby was stillborn. He wouldn’t even let me see him.”
Ethan slowly pulled out his phone.
His hands were shaking.
He opened an old photograph of his mother.
The woman covered her mouth.
“Oh my God…”
Ethan turned the screen toward her.
“That’s Lucy, isn’t it?”
The old woman touched the screen with one trembling finger.
“My daughter…”
Then Ethan noticed something strange.
In the photo, Lucy was wearing the same silver pendant.
He looked back at the woman.
“Who told you the baby died?”
Her face suddenly changed.
“My husband.”
Ethan went completely still.
The woman swallowed hard.
“His name was Richard Maddox.”
Ethan’s blood ran cold.
“That’s my grandfather’s name.”
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then the woman whispered:
“Ethan… your grandfather didn’t lose you.”
Her voice broke.
“He sold you.”
Ethan’s chair scraped violently across the diner floor.
“What?”
She reached into her handbag and pulled out an old folded letter she had carried for twenty-seven years.
On the front was Lucy’s handwriting.
Ethan opened it.
The first line made his hands start shaking:
“Mom, if you ever find my son, tell him I never gave him away…”
But the final sentence was even worse.
Lucy had written the name of the person who had taken the baby.
Ethan read it once.
Then again.
His face went pale.
Because that person had raised him his entire life.
Part 3 in the comments…
