Chapter 4 - THE DAUGHTER VICTOR NEVER KNEW EXISTED
Victor Malenkov had spent twelve years mourning his wife.
Now I was learning he might have been mourning a child without even knowing she existed.
Professor Ward sat across from Detective Morgan the following afternoon.
Her attorney was present.
I wasn't allowed to attend the confidential portion of the interview.
But afterward, Professor Ward asked to speak with me.
Her eyes were red.
“Grace, I'm sorry.”
I frowned.
“For what?”
“For letting you walk into something I should have explained years ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does this have to do with me?”
She looked away.
Then whispered, “Your mother worked at St. Augustine's.”
I froze.
“My mother was a seamstress.”
“She was.”
Professor Ward nodded.
“But she also repaired clothing for patients at the clinic.”
My heart pounded.
I remembered my mother bringing home bundles of hospital linens when I was little.
I'd assumed she was doing laundry for extra money.
Professor Ward continued.
“She became friends with Elena Malenkov.”
I stared.
“That's impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother never mentioned her.”
Professor Ward smiled sadly.
“She was trying to protect you.”
The words struck harder than anything else.
Everyone seemed to have been protecting someone by hiding the truth.
I was beginning to hate the word protect.
“What happened?” I demanded.
Professor Ward took a breath.
“Elena believed a child connected to her family had been transferred through the clinic under a false name.”
My stomach tightened.
“Her daughter?”
Professor Ward nodded cautiously.
“That's what she believed.”
I stared.
“Did she have a child?”
“According to the records she showed me, yes.”
My heart pounded.
“Then why didn't Victor know?”
Professor Ward looked down.
“She believed the records had been altered after a medical emergency years earlier.”
I swallowed.
“Was the child alive?”
Professor Ward hesitated.
“I don't know what happened afterward.”
I stepped back.
This was becoming too much.
A dead wife.
A missing child.
A clinic with falsified records.
And my mother somehow connected to all of it.
I looked toward my bandaged hand.
The handkerchief.
The embroidered E.
The message hidden beneath the stitches.
Then I remembered something.
My mother's sewing box.
It still sat beneath my bed.
Inside were old patterns, receipts, thread, and a small photograph I'd never understood.
A woman holding a baby.
The woman's face was turned away.
The baby wore a white blanket embroidered with blue flowers.
I stared at Professor Ward.
“Did Elena have dark hair?”
She nodded.
“And green eyes?”
“Yes.”
My heart stopped.
I knew that photograph.
I'd seen it a hundred times.
Then Professor Ward said something that made my knees weaken.
“Grace, Elena Malenkov gave birth to a daughter twenty-five years ago.”
I stared.
Twenty-five.
My age.
May you like
And before I could speak, Professor Ward whispered the final revelation.
“That little girl was placed with a family named Bennett.”
