Chapter 3 - The Price of a Secret
The hospital room became a courtroom in a matter of seconds.
Eleanor laid a check on the small table next to the doctor’s computer.
It was for ten million dollars.
Next to it was a set of divorce papers, already filled out with Anna’s name.
"Take the money, David," Eleanor said, her voice smooth and persuasive.
"Take Liam. He is the true heir. He is the one who carries our likeness."
"This other one... this 'Noah'... he is a medical anomaly. A glitch."
"My daughter clearly cannot explain how this happened, and the law is on my side now."
"Leave her. Leave the child who isn't hers. Start over."
I looked at the check. I looked at the woman who had birthed my wife.
I felt a level of disgust I didn't know a human could feel.
"You are a monster," I said, my voice shaking with rage.
"Your grandson is dying ten feet away from here, and you're talking about 'glitches'?"
Eleanor didn't flinch. "I am talking about the survival of a legacy."
"Anna is broken. She has always been weak. This... thing... proves it."
Anna stood up then. She didn't look weak anymore.
She looked like a woman who had been pushed to the edge of a cliff and decided to fly.
"Get out," Anna said.
"Anna, don't be stupid—" Eleanor started.
"GET OUT!" Anna screamed, her voice shaking the glass partitions.
The security guards arrived and escorted Eleanor and her lawyer from the floor.
But the damage was done.
We went home that night, leaving Noah in the care of the night nurses.
The house felt like a tomb.
I found Anna in the back of the walk-in closet.
She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by boxes she hadn't opened in years.
She held an old, leather-bound diary and a small, dusty digital recorder.
"I thought I could bury it," she whispered.
"I thought if I just loved them enough, the past wouldn't matter."
"Anna, talk to me," I said, sitting beside her on the cold floor.
"What did the doctor mean? How is it possible that you aren't his mother?"
She handed me the recorder.
"My mother owned the fertility clinic we went to after the second miscarriage."
"Do you remember? She said she would pay for everything."
"She said she wanted us to have the best care."
I remembered. I had thought it was a rare moment of maternal kindness.
"I didn't just have a miscarriage the third time, David," Anna sobbed.
"I had a 'complication' during the procedure. I was unconscious for hours."
"My mother told me the embryo didn't take. She said we had to try one last time."
She pressed 'play' on the recorder.
A voice came through—Eleanor’s voice, younger, but just as cold.
"The surrogate is ready. We will use David’s sample. I won't have my daughter failing again."
"If she can't produce a proper heir, I will provide one for her."
"She’ll never know. We’ll implant both—her natural embryo and the one from the donor."
"If they both survive, we’ll tell her it’s a miracle."
"And if the donor child doesn't look like us... well, I'll deal with that when the time comes."
The recording cut off.
I looked at the diary in my hands.
It wasn't Anna’s diary. It was her father’s—a man who had died "by accident" twenty years ago.
I opened the marked page and began to read the truth about Eleanor's "purity."
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My world didn't just shatter. It turned to ash.
***
