Chapter 16 - I Was One of the Children
I laughed.
"She stole me."
Noah sat beside me.
Marlene said nothing.
Ross ordered a DNA test.
The results came back fast because the state lab prioritized the kidnapping case.
Marlene was not my biological mother.
Anna was not my biological sister.
"Why me?"
She shrugged.
"I lost Emily."
"You drugged Emily."
"I made a mistake."
"You almost killed her."
"I was alone. Your father blamed me for everything. Then the hospital had a newborn whose mother disappeared after delivery."
"My real mother."
"She was seventeen. She had no money."
"So you took her baby."
"I gave you a home."
"You stole me."
She leaned forward.
"And you loved me."
I stared at her.
Ross placed a folder in front of me.
My original birth name had been Claire Morgan.
My biological mother was Jennifer Morgan.
Alive.
Living in Ohio.
Marlene had signed paperwork saying exactly that.
I felt physically ill.
Noah took my hand.
"You don't have to call her today."
"Yes, I do."
Jennifer answered after six rings.
"Hello?"
"Hello?"
"My name is Claire."
Silence.
"I think... I think I was born at St. Matthew's Hospital in 1992."
I heard her inhale.
Then nothing.
"Jennifer?"
Her voice broke.
"What did you say your name was?"
"Claire."
She started crying.
Not politely.
Not quietly.
The kind of crying that comes from a wound opening after thirty-four years.
"My baby had a strawberry mark behind her left ear," she whispered.
My hand flew to the mark I had hidden beneath my hair my whole life.
"I still have it."
Jennifer made a sound I will never forget.
Then she said, "Claire, I never left you."
My eyes closed.
"I know."
She cried harder.
May you like
And then she told me something that changed the case again.
"I reported Marlene Harper to the police three days after you were born."
