Chapter 6 - THE NURSE WHO REMEMBERED EVERYTHING|
Patricia Sloan lived in a small white house overlooking the rocky coast of Maine. She was seventy-eight, walked with a silver-topped cane, and had the watchful eyes of someone who had spent decades learning when silence was safer than honesty.
When Theodore arrived with Nadia, Patricia refused to open the door.
“I have nothing to say about the Hawthornes.”
“You haven't even heard the question,” Theodore replied.
“I don't need to.”
Nadia stepped forward.
“My mother's name was Margaret Vale.”
The expression on Patricia's face changed.
She opened the door.
Inside, the house smelled of coffee and cedar. Family photographs covered one wall, but the shelves above the fireplace held no medical awards or retirement plaques. Patricia had removed nearly every reminder of her former career.
She sat them at the kitchen table.
“Margaret was a good woman,” she said. “She deserved better than what happened.”
Nadia leaned forward.
“You knew her?”
“I worked the maternity ward the night you were born.”
Nadia's heart began to pound.
“Me?”
Patricia nodded.
“Your mother delivered a baby girl at 11:42 p.m. on October fourteenth. She was exhausted, but she kept asking to see the child. Then a doctor came in and told her the baby had been transferred.”
“Transferred where?”
Patricia looked toward Theodore.
“That's the part they paid me to forget.”
Theodore's jaw tightened.
“Who paid you?”
“Richard Hawthorne's attorney. He said the family wanted to avoid a scandal. He told me the infant had been born into a complicated situation and that the mother had agreed to a private arrangement.”
“My mother would never have given me away.”
“I know that now,” Patricia whispered.
She explained that Margaret had been working at the Hawthorne estate during her pregnancy. Richard had claimed that she was merely a household employee, but several staff members believed he had been involved with her. Margaret refused to discuss the relationship.
On the night of the birth, two infants were delivered within minutes of each other.
One was Theodore, the legitimate son of Richard and Eleanor Hawthorne.
The other was Margaret's daughter.
But the hospital records showed only one surviving infant under the Hawthorne name.
Nadia felt the room tilt.
“You're saying there were two babies?”
“Yes.”
“Then where is the other child?”
Patricia reached for a small wooden box.
Inside lay an old hospital bracelet, a folded note, and a photograph of a newborn wrapped in a pale yellow blanket.
On the bracelet was a name.
Baby Vale. Female.
Nadia touched the plastic.
“Why did you keep this?”
“Because I couldn't live with myself if every trace disappeared.”
She handed Nadia the note.
It was written in Richard's handwriting.
The girl will be raised elsewhere. Eleanor must never learn the truth. Margaret will receive compensation for her silence. If she refuses, remind her what happened to the workshop.
Nadia covered her mouth.
“He threatened my mother.”
Patricia nodded.
“Margaret came to see me three days later. She was crying. She told me someone had switched the records and that she would find her daughter. She said she had agreed to keep a secret because she thought it would save a life.”
“Whose life?” Theodore asked.
Patricia looked at him.
“Yours.”
He stood abruptly.
“That's impossible.”
“Your father believed the family had enemies. He thought a second child could become a target. But I never understood why he erased the girl rather than protect both babies.”
Nadia's voice trembled.
“Did my mother know where I was?”
Patricia shook her head.
“She knew the baby had been taken. She spent years searching. The fire happened after she discovered something in the hospital records.”
Theodore paced toward the window.
“Who changed the documents?”
Patricia opened another envelope.
“I kept a copy of the original transfer order. The signature belongs to the attorney who handled the Hawthorne estate.”
She slid the paper across the table.
Daniel Price.
The same man who had appeared beside Clarissa in the courthouse photograph.
At the bottom of the document was a second signature authorizing the transfer of a newborn to a private family in Connecticut.
The adoptive parents' names had been covered by a strip of black ink.
But the agency stamp remained visible.
St. Catherine's Children's Trust.
Nadia stared at it.
“My mother spent years volunteering at a children's home with that name.”
Patricia looked up sharply.
“Not a children's home. An adoption agency. And it closed after its director disappeared.”
Theodore reached for the paper.
“Marcus needs to investigate every adoption processed by that agency in 2003.”
Nadia stood beside him.
“Not just every adoption.”
May you like
She pointed at the blacked-out names.
“Every child who was told their parents were dead.”
