I called him and told him to meet me at the house.
He was pacing when I walked in.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Safe.”
I faced him.
“Why is our daughter alive?”
He stared at the floor.
“She wasn’t the same,” he said finally.
“What does that mean?”
“There was damage. Cognitive delays. Therapy. Specialists. It was going to cost thousands.”
“So you decided she was better off dead?”
“I didn’t kill her!” he snapped. “I found a family.”
My stomach dropped.
“You gave her away?”
“I thought I was protecting you,” he said. “You were barely functioning. I thought this was our chance to move forward.”
“By pretending she was dead?”
“She wasn’t the same, Mary.”
“She was alive.”
He rubbed his face. “You don’t understand what you’re signing up for.”
“I understand you abandoned your child because she wasn’t convenient.”
The calm that settled over me wasn’t peace. It was clarity.
“We’re done,” I said.
When I returned to Melissa’s house, Grace was eating grilled cheese at the kitchen table.
“Mom!” she smiled.
That word steadied me.
“Tell me what happened,” I said gently.
“I started remembering things last year,” she explained. “Your voice. My room. I told them, but they said I was confused.”
“The people you were living with?”
She nodded. “They kept me inside a lot. I had to cook and clean.”
My hands trembled.
