Chapter 2 - The Daughter I Never Knew
I did not leave Apartment 4B that night. Every instinct I had developed over twenty years told me to take control immediately. Call doctors. Move Sarah to the best hospital in Chicago. Put Lily somewhere safe. Find every person who had known the truth and make them explain themselves. But Lily was watching me, and Sarah looked frightened enough without the full weight of Nathan Moretti descending on her life. So I did something that did not come naturally.
I asked permission.
“Sarah, you need a doctor.”
“I have one.”
“You’re coughing blood.”
Lily’s head snapped toward her mother.
Sarah glared at me.
I had not meant to say it in front of the child.
“Mommy?”
“It’s okay.”
It was obviously not okay.
Sarah tried to sit and nearly collapsed.
I caught her shoulder.
She flinched at my touch.
That hurt more than it should have.
Thirty years ago she used to fall asleep against that same shoulder while we sat on the roof of my mother’s building watching trains pass in the distance.
Now she reacted as if I might hurt her.
“How sick are you?”
She said nothing.
Lily answered.
“Mom has a bad heart.”
Sarah whispered, “Lily.”
“What?”
“She knows.”
I looked at Sarah.
“What kind of heart condition?”
“Cardiomyopathy.”
“How long?”
“Years.”
“Treatment?”
“When we can afford it.”
I looked toward the medicine bottles.
That explained the rent.
“How much are you behind medically?”
“Nate.”
“How much?”
“You’re doing it.”
“What?”
“Talking like every problem is an invoice you can pay.”
“Some are.”
“And some aren’t.”
She was right.
I hated it.
I sat in the only chair beside the bed.
“Then explain the ones that aren’t.”
Lily curled against Sarah.
The child’s bleeding fingers rested on the quilt.
I stared at them.
“First tell her to stop sewing.”
Sarah’s face tightened.
“You think I want her working?”
“She said she needs money for your medication.”
“I know.”
“And you allow it?”
The moment I said it, regret hit.
Sarah’s eyes turned cold.
“You walked into this apartment after seven years you didn’t know existed and judged me in under fifteen minutes.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
She struggled upright.
“I lost my housekeeping job when I collapsed at work. Disability has been delayed twice. The pharmacy doesn’t accept promises. The landlord sends notices. Food costs money. Everything costs money.”
She pointed weakly toward the sewing machine.
“She started helping Mrs. Cooper mend things because she saw me sewing. Then people paid her without telling me how much she was doing.”
Lily stared at the blanket.
“I wanted to help.”
Sarah immediately softened.
“I know, baby.”
“I’m good at it.”
“You are.”
“I can keep doing it.”
“No.”
This time Sarah and I said it together.
Lily looked offended.
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Instead, I said, “No more sewing until your fingers heal.”
“You’re not my dad.”
The words came naturally.
Innocently.
They still landed hard.
Sarah closed her eyes.
I looked at Lily.
“No. Not officially.”
She frowned.
Something passed across Sarah’s face.
“Nate.”
“We need the truth.”
“Not tonight.”
“She deserves—”
“She deserves stability before you drop thirty years of Moretti history into her lap.”
Fair again.
I was having a terrible evening for being right.
I called a private physician I trusted, Dr. Samuel Reeves. I told him nothing about paternity. Only that Sarah needed urgent evaluation and refused hospitalization unless necessary.
He arrived forty minutes later.
Sarah hated every second.
Lily liked him because he carried grape-flavored bandages.
After examining Sarah, Samuel asked to speak with me outside.
“This isn’t mild.”
“How bad?”
“Her heart is functioning at maybe thirty percent. Possibly lower. She needs imaging, labs, cardiology. Tonight.”
“Can she survive transport?”
“Yes.”
“Then we go.”
Sarah refused.
“I’m not leaving Lily.”
“Lily comes.”
“I can’t afford—”
“Stop.”
Her eyes flashed.
I corrected myself.
“Please stop making medical decisions based on money.”
She stared.
“That sounded painful.”
“What?”
“Saying please.”
“Extremely.”
A faint smile appeared.
It was the first glimpse of the Sarah I remembered.
We took her to Northwestern.
Not because I owned anything there.
Because Samuel said it had the team she needed.
Lily sat beside me in the waiting room while Sarah underwent tests.
She held a small tin of sewing needles.
“You should throw those away,” I said.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Mom’s.”
I nodded.
Then she asked:
“Were you friends?”
“Who?”
“You and Mom.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Children have strange measurement systems.
“A lot.”
“Boyfriend?”
I glanced at her.
“Something like that.”
“Did you break her heart?”
The irony almost made me choke.
“I hope not.”
“She cries sometimes.”
“When?”
“When she thinks I’m asleep.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
“She looks at a picture.”
“What picture?”
Lily dug through the small backpack she had brought.
She pulled out a folded photograph.
My heart stopped.
Seventeen-year-old Sarah.
Eighteen-year-old me.
Standing beside Lake Michigan.
My arm around her waist.
Both laughing.
I had forgotten the photograph existed.
“You know him?” Lily asked.
“That’s me.”
She stared at the photo.
Then my face.
Then back.
“You had weird hair.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
For perhaps the first time all week.
“Yes.”
She traced Sarah’s younger face.
“Mom was pretty.”
“She still is.”
Lily looked at me sharply.
Children apparently understand tone too.
Before she could ask more, Dr. Reeves approached.
My smile disappeared.
“Sarah?”
“Stable.”
I breathed.
“But she needs surgery.”
“What kind?”
“Likely ventricular assist support if medication cannot stabilize her, potentially transplant evaluation later.”
Lily looked between us.
“Is Mommy going to die?”
Samuel hesitated.
I crouched.
I had lied for business.
For survival.
For power.
But somehow I could not lie to her.
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes filled.
“But,” I continued, “she has very good doctors now.”
“Because you paid them?”
“Yes.”
She frowned.
“Mom doesn’t like owing.”
“She doesn’t owe me.”
“Everybody owes you.”
That made me stare.
“Who told you that?”
“Mom.”
Of course.
I sat beside her.
“Your mother knew a different version of me.”
“Bad?”
“Sometimes.”
“Are you bad now?”
I thought carefully.
“I’ve done bad things.”
“That’s not same.”
“No?”
“My teacher says people can do bad things and still choose better.”
A seven-year-old was apparently more emotionally advanced than half my organization.
“I’m trying.”
She nodded.
Then handed me the photograph.
“Maybe Mom kept this because she thinks you can choose better.”
That sentence remained with me.
Sarah was admitted overnight.
At 2:17 a.m., while Lily slept against my side in the family waiting room, my security chief, Luca Santori, arrived.
“I pulled the old records you wanted.”
“What?”
“The sewing machine.”
I looked up.
My mother had sold it to a pawn broker in 1996.
The pawn broker sold it two days later.
Buyer’s name:
Victor Hale.
My father’s attorney.
Then Victor transferred ownership to Sarah’s mother.
Exactly as Sarah said.
But Luca had found something else.
“The same attorney opened a bank account in Sarah’s mother’s name.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
My jaw tightened.
“Payoff?”
“Probably.”
“Did Sarah know?”
“No idea.”
“Anything else?”
Luca hesitated.
“What?”
“Monthly deposits continued for seven years.”
I stared.
“From my father?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Luca placed the bank records in front of me.
The transfers came from a company I recognized immediately.
Moretti Textiles.
My mother’s old business.
My father had not been the only person who knew Sarah was alive.
My mother knew too.
May you like
And she had secretly sent money for years.
The question was why she had never told me.
