By noon, grief had become almost irrelevant.
I was still a widow.
Daniel had still been buried the previous afternoon.
Yet the man I missed and the man Margaret described seemed to occupy separate rooms inside my mind, and I could not make them meet.
“Why would Thomas use his own genetic material?” I asked.
Margaret shook her head.
“We don’t know that he knowingly used his.”
“But you said Daniel believed it.”
“He believed Thomas interfered with the procedure. He never proved exactly how.”
“Why would Thomas interfere with us at all?”
“That question haunted Daniel.”
I looked at her.
“And you?”
“Yes.”
“When did he tell you?”
“Twelve years ago.”
Again: twelve years.
The year Michael became engaged to Rachel.
“Did you know immediately that Thomas worked at the clinic?”
“When Daniel mentioned St. Matthew’s, yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel begged me not to.”
I laughed bitterly.
“He was apparently very persuasive whenever the truth threatened to enter this house.”
Margaret took the insult without defending herself.
That made me angrier.
“Did Thomas know Daniel?”
“Very well.”
“How well?”
“They hated each other.”
The statement startled me.
“Daniel never mentioned him.”
“There was a reason.”
Margaret reached for her handbag.
From inside she removed a folded photocopy.
She placed it on the table.
It was an old newspaper clipping dated June 1981.
LOCAL MAN ARRESTED FOLLOWING HOSPITAL ALTERCATION.
The accompanying photograph showed a younger Daniel being escorted from a building.
“What is this?”
“Rebecca overdosed at the hospital.”
My eyes moved across the article.
Daniel Thomas Hale, 27, had allegedly struck a physician during an incident at St. Matthew’s Medical Center.
The physician was named Dr. Thomas Morgan.
Margaret’s brother.
“Why did Daniel hit him?”
“Because Thomas had been prescribing medication to Rebecca.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“Rebecca’s addiction didn’t begin with some unknown doctor.”
Margaret’s voice tightened.
“Thomas gave her pills.”
“Her own brother?”
“He told himself he was helping her manage pain.”
“And when she became dependent?”
“He kept giving them.”
I reread the article.
Daniel had known.
“He blamed Thomas.”
“Yes.”
“Was he right?”
“Yes.”
The certainty surprised me.
“Thomas admitted it?”
“To me.”
“When?”
“After Rebecca died.”
I put the clipping down.
“So Daniel loses Rebecca. Your parents take Anna. Thomas helped create the addiction that destroyed everything. Years later, Daniel marries me, and we happen to walk into the same hospital where Thomas works.”
“It wasn’t coincidence.”
I stared.
Margaret immediately seemed to regret saying it.
“What wasn’t?”
“St. Matthew’s.”
“What about it?”
“Daniel knew Thomas worked there.”
“No.”
“He knew.”
“No, he didn’t choose the clinic. My gynecologist referred us.”
“Daniel could have requested another.”
“But he didn’t.”
Margaret nodded.
“Exactly.”
A chill moved through me.
“Why would he agree to treatment at a hospital connected to a man he hated?”
“That was something Daniel never explained to me.”
I looked toward the ceiling.
The metal box upstairs contained more papers beneath the letter.
I had been too shocked by the photograph and birth certificate to examine them.
Without speaking, I went upstairs.
Margaret followed but remained outside the bedroom.
I sat beside the document box.
Under Daniel’s letter were several folders.
One labeled ANNA.
Another labeled MICHAEL.
A third labeled THOMAS M.
My hand hesitated over it.
Inside were records spanning decades.
The newspaper clipping Margaret had brought.
Copies of court documents regarding Anna’s adoption.
Letters.
Medical paperwork.
A laboratory report.
And, near the bottom, an envelope marked:
IF MARGARET HAS TOLD YOU ABOUT THOMAS, READ THIS NEXT.
My anger flared.
“He organized my grief.”
Margaret stood in the doorway.
“What?”
“He knew exactly how this conversation would happen.”
I held up the envelope.
“He planned the order.”
“He was trying to make it easier.”
“For whom?”
She had no answer.
I opened it.
Ellen,
If you have reached this point, you know Michael is not genetically mine.
Nothing about that fact changed the way I loved him. Not for one second. He is my son. Please never allow my fear to become his burden.
You also know about Thomas.
Here is the part I could never settle.
I knew Thomas worked at St. Matthew’s when we were referred there. I should have told you immediately. I did not.
At the time, I believed avoiding him would be enough. I was arrogant enough to think the past could stand ten feet away without touching us.
Thomas saw my name in the clinic system.
He contacted me privately.
I stopped reading.
“Thomas contacted Daniel during our treatments.”
Margaret nodded faintly.
“You knew?”
“No.”
I continued.
He told me he wanted to apologize for Rebecca.
I refused.
Then he said something I did not understand until years later.
He said, “You took my sister from us. One day you’ll know what it feels like to raise something that isn’t yours.”
My blood went cold.
I remember laughing at him.
I thought it was cruelty, nothing more.
Michael was conceived two weeks later.
I stopped again.
“Jesus.”
Margaret stepped farther into the room.
“What did he write?”
I handed her the page.
Her face drained as she read.
“I never knew this.”
I believed her.
I returned to the box.
There were copies of correspondence between Daniel and St. Matthew’s beginning twelve years earlier.
Requests for records.
Responses stating records from that period had been destroyed according to retention policy.
Requests for employee files.
Refusals.
Then a letter from a private investigator.
Dr. Thomas Morgan had served as associate director of reproductive medicine during the year of my treatment.
He had access to patient records.
He had access to laboratory facilities.
There had been two complaints regarding record discrepancies during his tenure.
Neither produced formal charges.
I kept reading.
One nurse from that period was still alive.
Her name was Judith Palmer.
Daniel had apparently found her.
A handwritten note beside her address read:
She remembers Ellen.
I looked at Margaret.
“He found a nurse.”
She came closer.
“Judith?”
“You know her?”
“I met her once. Years ago.”
“What did Daniel learn?”
“I don’t know.”
“He never told you?”
“No.”
I searched the remaining papers.
There was no statement from Judith.
Only an address and phone number.
Then I found a second note.
Judith would not speak by phone.
She said she would tell Ellen if Ellen ever asked herself.
My hands became cold.
Daniel had gone to all this trouble.
Tracked her down.
Documented everything.
Yet he had left the final answer untouched.
At the bottom of the box sat one more envelope.
Different handwriting.
Not Daniel’s.
My name was written across it.
Margaret saw it and inhaled sharply.
“What?”
She pointed.
“That’s Anna’s handwriting.”
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a short letter.
Ellen,
I don’t know whether I have the right to contact you.
Daniel asked me to wait. I agreed because he was ill, and because I understood fear better than I wanted to.
There is something you should know before deciding whether you ever want to meet me.
My father did not only hide me from you.
For years, he hid you from me.
I grew up believing he chose another family because he wanted to forget the first one.
That was not true.
Someone made sure I believed it.
I only learned who after I met him.
If you want the rest, ask Margaret about the letters.
Anna
I lowered the page.
“What letters?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
For the first time that morning, she looked ashamed rather than sad.
“Margaret.”
“My father wrote to Anna.”
“What did he tell her?”
“That Daniel had surrendered her willingly.”
“He had.”
“Not in the way Anna was told.”
“What way?”
“He told her Daniel married you and wanted no reminders of Rebecca.”
I stared at her.
“He said Daniel asked the family never to contact him again.”
“Did Daniel?”
“No.”
My throat tightened.
“Then why didn’t Daniel contact Anna?”
“He tried.”
The answer was immediate.
“What?”
“For years.”
Margaret sat on the edge of the chair near the desk.
“He sent birthday cards. Letters. Christmas gifts. My father returned some. Hid others.”
“And you knew?”
“Not at first.”
“When did you find out?”
“After my father died.”
“What happened to the letters?”
“I found them in a storage box.”
“How many?”
“Dozens.”
I could not understand the cruelty of it.
A father writing to a daughter who thought she had been abandoned.
A girl waiting for a man who thought his letters were reaching her.
“Where are they now?”
“Anna has them.”
I sat very still.
“Did Daniel ever know?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Six months ago. When Anna contacted him.”
The same six months during which Daniel was dying.
No wonder he had changed.
No wonder I sometimes found him awake at three in the morning staring at nothing.
He had not merely been preparing for death.
He had been discovering the shape of his own past.
My phone rang downstairs.
Neither of us moved at first.
Then it rang again.
I went down.
The number was unfamiliar but local.
“Hello?”
A woman spoke.
“Is this Ellen Hale?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Judith Palmer.”
I stopped beside the kitchen table.
Margaret had followed me and froze when she heard the name.
Judith continued.
“I’m sorry to call so soon after your husband’s funeral.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“How did you know about Daniel?”
“He came to see me in June.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“He left your number.”
“Why?”
The woman was silent long enough that I heard her breathing.
“Because he wanted me to tell you what happened at St. Matthew’s in 1990.”
I looked at Michael’s photograph on the hallway wall.
“What happened?”
“Not over the telephone.”
“Mrs. Palmer—”
“I spent thirty-six years convincing myself I had seen nothing.”
Her voice broke.
“I won’t lie anymore.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did Thomas Morgan switch the sample?”
Judith inhaled.
“I saw him enter the laboratory the morning of your procedure.”
My heartbeat thudded.
“Was he carrying anything?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A specimen container.”
Margaret gripped the back of a chair.
I forced myself to ask the next question.
“Was it his?”
“I can’t prove that.”
“What can you prove?”
Judith’s voice became quieter.
“That the container assigned to your husband disappeared.”
I pressed my free hand against the wall.
“And the one used for me?”
“I know where it came from.”
The floor seemed to shift beneath me.
“Where?”
“I’ll show you.”
“When?”
“Today.”
There was a pause.
“Mrs. Hale, there’s another reason you need to come.”
“What reason?”
“When Daniel visited me in June, he wasn’t alone.”
I looked at Margaret.
“Who was with him?”
Judith answered.
“Your son.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: Judith Had Saved One Piece of Evidence for Thirty-Six Years, but Michael’s Presence in June Changed What I Thought He Knew
The Last Thing Daniel Said Made No Sense Until a Stranger Knocked Before I Had Put Away His Funeral Dress
Part 4 of 20
