Chapter 3
Lance tugged at my sleeve impatiently.
"Come on, Mom, pay up. Dad said you'd buy me a game console for coming here," Lance whined.
I looked down at him.
He was yanking at my sleeve with all his strength, his eyes shouting, "Hurry up and pay."
I'd raised him for eight years.
Last time, I'd taken care of him for thirty years.
In the end, he called Juliette "Mom" and me "that crazy woman."
I pried his hand off my sleeve.
"I need to use the bathroom," I said.
Juliette pointed toward the end of the hallway.
I walked down the hallway, rounded two corners, pushed open an unlocked iron gate, and stepped into the backyard.
A basin of dirty water had been dumped on the ground.
A little girl crouched by the faucet, washing a blood-stained bedsheet.
She was skinny as a twig, bruises mottling her arms.
It was December, and all she had on was a thin, old sweater with sleeves way too short.
Her fingers were turning purple from the cold, but she kept wringing water out of the bedsheet.
I stopped in my tracks.
She seemed to sense something and looked up, timid and wary.
The moment she saw me, fear flashed in her eyes, and she instinctively shrank back a step.
I stood frozen.
I stared at her face.
She was so thin, her cheekbones jutting out, her eyes hollow.
The shape of her eyes, the curve of her nose, those delicate eyebrows all mirrored my own.
They were like my mom's.
She looked like the kid in my childhood pictures.
My gaze drifted downward.
She pulled her hand back, turning it so the back was facing up.
There, left of center, was a pale brown crescent-shaped birthmark.
Without thinking, I pressed my right hand over the back of my left.
Right there on the same spot, I had the same birthmark.
Even the shape was the same.
My mom had it.
And so did I.
My grandma said that every girl in the Reed family had that crescent birthmark, generation after generation.
Eight years ago, I hemorrhaged in the delivery room and was in a coma for three days.
When I woke up, Henry told me the baby hadn't made it. She was born without a breath.
I cried for a whole month.
But I remembered clearly that before I blacked out, I heard a baby cry.
Henry said it was a postpartum hallucination.
Jennifer said the baby was stillborn and never let me hold her, not even once.
Then she shoved another baby into my arms and said, "You still have a son, don't you? Forget about that."
That baby was Lance.
But staring at the back of this little girl's hand, I felt a wave of shock hit me, leaving me breathless.
If my baby were stillborn, who was this living girl with the Reed family's birthmark?
"You little bastard," Juliette suddenly appeared behind me.
She gave the basin a hard kick, splashing dirty water all over the little girl.
"Slacking off, huh? You're not eating tonight," Juliette snapped.
The little girl didn't cry or try to dodge.
She lowered her head and bent down to pick up the overturned basin, as if it was nothing new to her.
My fingers clenched so hard that my nails bit into my palm.
Blood oozed out, but I kept my grip tight.
Juliette turned and saw me standing there. Her expression shifted briefly, but she quickly put on her usual air of superiority.
"Ms. Reed, this is a stray the sanatorium took in. She's not all there in the head, so don't bother with her," Juliette said.
She stepped between the little girl and me, angling her body like she was trying to block something she didn't want me to see.
"Let's go back and talk about the fees. Give 170 thousand as a deposit. If you're even a cent short, I can't keep your husband in check. He might kick you out whenever he feels like it," Juliette said.
I didn't say a word.
I took one last look at the little girl.
She was huddled in the corner, shivering from the cold, sneaking a glance at me.
That look in her eyes was like a knife, stabbing me again and again.
I turned and followed Juliette back inside.
As I walked past the faucet, I noticed a few fine strands of hair lying on the ground.
I bent down, pretending to tie my shoelace.
My fingers pinched those hairs, roots still attached, and I balled them up in my fist.
As I walked out the door of the sanatorium, Jennifer was still nagging behind me.
"Michelle, when are you going to pay the 170 thousand dollars?" Jennifer yelled.
I didn't look back.
Clutching those hairs in my palm, I made a silent promise to that little girl.
I told her in my heart, 'Please wait for me.'
I promised I'd come back for her.
But before that, I was going to make sure everyone here got what they deserved.
I paid for the express DNA test, and the results would be ready in 48 hours.
I sat in the plastic chair at the testing center, taking the brown paper bag from the staff member.
I opened it.
It read: [The test results are in: Sample A and Sample B are directly related. Confirmed—mother and daughter.]
The words on the paper were tiny.
My tears fell onto the page, blurring the ink.
She was alive. My daughter was alive.
She wasn't dead. She'd never been dead.
For eight years, they'd lied to me.