Chapter 2 - The Letter My Mother Was Terrified to Let Me Read
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My father's expression changed the moment Renee mentioned the envelope.
Antonio stepped between me and the study.
“Michael, Christmas isn't the time for legal paperwork.”
I looked at him.
“Move.”
He didn't.
Behind us, my mother gripped the edge of the hallway table.
“You don't understand what you're getting involved in,” she said.
I held Renee closer.
“Then explain it.”
Neither answered.
My father had spent my childhood teaching me that hesitation revealed weakness.
Now he was hesitating.
That told me more than his words.
“Antonio,” I said quietly, “step aside.”
He stared at me.
There had been a time when I would have lowered my eyes.
That time was over.
He moved.
I entered the study and placed Renee on the leather sofa beside my desk.
“Stay right here, sweetheart.”
She nodded.
I picked up the envelope.
The adhesive seal had been broken and pressed back into place.
Inside was a formal letter from attorney Charlotte Mercer.
I recognized her name. Four years earlier, her firm had assisted with legal issues surrounding the charitable placement program through which I'd met Renee.
The first paragraph requested an urgent confidential meeting.
The second made my stomach tighten.
The firm had obtained evidence suggesting that certain records used during Renee's original placement had been altered.
I read the sentence again.
Then the next.
A woman named Elena Vega had requested a review of the circumstances surrounding her daughter's separation from her.
Elena Vega.
Renee's birth mother.
I remembered the adoption documents clearly.
Elena had supposedly died in a warehouse fire when Renee was barely two.
That tragedy was part of the reason Renee had entered foster care.
I looked toward my parents.
“What is this?”
Carmen shook her head.
“It's a misunderstanding.”
“The letter says Renee's birth mother may have been alive after the date recorded on her death certificate.”
Antonio stepped inside.
“Michael, don't believe everything lawyers put on paper.”
I stared at him.
“How would you know what the letter says?”
He said nothing.
My mother reached toward the envelope.
“Give that to me.”
I pulled it away.
“No.”
“Michael, I'm your mother.”
“And Renee is my daughter.”
Her face tightened.
I removed a second sheet.
It was a photograph.
A younger Carmen stood outside a hospital beside a dark-haired woman holding a little girl in a yellow coat.
The child looked remarkably like Renee.
I turned the photograph over.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Four years earlier.
Three weeks before Renee entered the foster system.
Below it were five handwritten words.
Carmen knows what happened to Elena.
I looked up slowly.
My mother had gone completely pale.
“Who is Elena Vega?” I asked.
Carmen opened her mouth.
But before she could answer, Renee spoke from the sofa.
“Daddy?”
I turned.
She was staring at the photograph.
“That's the lady from my dreams.”
My heart seemed to stop.
“What dreams, sweetheart?”
Renee pointed at the dark-haired woman.
“The lady who used to sing when I was scared.”
May you like
Then she looked at my mother.
“Grandma told me I wasn't supposed to remember her.”
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