Chapter 5 - THE NAME SHE FORGOT
The DNA test took three days.
Those were the longest three days since the night of the crash.
Sofia stayed in the guest wing because neither of us knew what else to do.
I stopped letting her work.
She hated that.
“I need the job.”
“You may be my daughter.”
“That doesn’t pay my rent.”
The answer was so practical I almost laughed.
Isabelle had always been practical.
At thirteen, she once billed Charles eight dollars after washing his car because he said “family should contribute.”
He paid.
I watched Sofia butter toast at breakfast and tried not to turn every gesture into proof.
She held her knife in her left hand.
Isabelle was left-handed.
She hated orange juice pulp.
So did Sofia.
Coincidence became emotionally dangerous when you wanted something badly enough.
Then the test came.
Evelyn drove to the mansion herself.
She did not tell me over the phone.
That frightened me.
Sofia sat beside me in the library.
Evelyn placed the report on the table.
Probability of parent-child relationship between Vivienne Laurent and Sofia Reed:
99.9998 percent.
I stopped breathing.
Sofia read it.
Then read it again.
Her hand flew to the emerald.
“No.”
I whispered, “Isabelle.”
She stood so fast the chair fell backward.
“No.”
“Sofia—”
“My name is Sofia.”
“Yes.”
“My parents were Michael and Anna.”
“Yes.”
“They raised me.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t get to erase them because of DNA.”
The words hit me with unexpected force.
“I’m not trying to.”
“You’re looking at me like I’m thirteen.”
I was.
I realized it immediately.
The daughter I had lost remained frozen at thirteen in my mind.
The woman in front of me had lived ten years I did not know.
She began crying.
“I don’t remember you.”
My own tears came.
“I know.”
“I remember Anna.”
“I know.”
“I remember Dad teaching me to drive.”
Michael.
Not Charles.
I nodded.
“You don’t have to stop loving them.”
Sofia covered her face.
Then suddenly she said:
“There’s something Mom left me.”
She went upstairs and returned with a sealed envelope Anna had instructed her to open only if someone ever questioned the necklace.
Inside was a letter.
Anna wrote that three months after taking Sofia in, Marjorie Kane visited their house alone.
She offered them twenty thousand dollars to move out of state and never contact authorities about the girl again.
Michael refused the money.
But Marjorie threatened to remove Sofia from them and place her in an institution because she remained “mentally unstable.”
They moved anyway.
Not for money.
Out of fear.
Anna wrote one final sentence:
Marjorie said the child’s biological father had already buried her once and would do worse if she came back.
May you like
Sofia looked at me.
“Charles knew.”
