Chapter 15 - THE CHILD UNDER THE OAK TREE
The baby’s name had been Anna.
Rebecca had chosen it quietly while pregnant.
Margaret hated the name.
So the official records called her Baby Girl Morrow.
Forensic examination could not prove homicide.
Too much time had passed.
But investigators established something else.
Anna had lived for nearly three months.
Rebecca had been told she died after two days.
For three months, someone had cared for that baby.
Hospital archives revealed Margaret had signed discharge paperwork.
She had taken Anna.
Rebecca stared at the document.
“She stole both of my children.”
First Anna.
Then Evan.
“What happened during those three months?” I asked.
Nobody knew.
Linda eventually remembered.
“Mom went away.”
Their mother had taken Margaret to a family property for several months.
Everyone was told Margaret was recovering from exhaustion.
In reality, she had been pretending Anna was hers.
Then the baby died.
The family buried her secretly.
Grandfather covered it up.
Again.
Margaret learned the lesson early.
Anything could disappear if the family had enough money.
Records.
Witnesses.
Children.
Truth.
That lesson shaped everything afterward.
Prosecutors could not charge her with Anna’s death.
But the discovery mattered to Rebecca.
She finally had a place to mourn.
We moved Anna’s remains to a cemetery.
Rebecca chose the stone.
ANNA REBECCA MORROW
BELOVED DAUGHTER
Nothing more.
No Hale name.
No Margaret.
At the funeral, Evan stood beside Rebecca.
Tessa stood beside him.
I held Maisie.
The rain came softly.
Maisie placed a yellow flower on the grave.
“Who is she?”
Rebecca crouched beside her.
“She was family.”
Maisie nodded.
“Family should be nice.”
Rebecca smiled through tears.
“Yes.”
“They weren’t nice to her?”
Rebecca looked at me.
Then back at Maisie.
“No.”
Maisie thought about that.
Then placed another flower down.
“I’m nice.”
“You are.”
That tiny exchange broke something open in Rebecca.
She cried in Evan’s arms.
Not because the past had been repaired.
It never could be.
Because the next generation was standing beside the grave without fear.
That mattered.
Afterward, Evan walked me to my car.
“I got an apartment.”
“Congratulations.”
“I bought furniture.”
“Without Margaret?”
He smiled.
“Without anyone.”
“Dangerous.”
“I own a purple couch.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“It looked blue online.”
I laughed.
For the first time, laughing with him didn’t hurt.
Then he became serious.
“I’m not asking you to come back.”
“Good.”
“I just want you to know something.”
“What?”
“I understand now why you left.”
I waited.
“And?”
“You were right.”
“About what?”
“If I stayed with my mother that night, I was choosing her.”
He looked toward Maisie.
“I had been choosing her my entire life.”
I nodded.
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
We stood in the rain.
There was no dramatic kiss.
No miraculous reconciliation.
Some damage should not be romanticized.
Sometimes love survives by changing shape.
Evan would never again be my husband.
But perhaps he could become the father Maisie deserved.
That was enough.
Then his phone rang.
His expression changed as he listened.
“What?”
I asked after he hung up.
“Margaret was attacked.”
I stared at him.
“In prison?”
“Yes.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“Who attacked her?”
He swallowed.
“That’s the strange part.”
The woman responsible had requested to speak to Rebecca.
Her name was Evelyn Morrow.
May you like
Rebecca’s older sister.
A woman Rebecca had believed was dead for twenty-seven years.
