Chapter 2 - The Photograph Beneath the Newspaper
The doctors cleared Room 412 within minutes.
Marisol stood in the corridor holding Lucia against her side while nurses moved in and out.
Lucia seemed more curious than frightened.
“Did I wake him?”
“Yes.”
“I told you he could hear me.”
Marisol managed a weak smile.
“You did.”
A tall man in a black suit approached.
Marisol knew him only as Roman Hayes, the security chief who had stood outside Dario’s door every day since she began cleaning the room.
“Mr. Kane wants to see Lucia.”
“No.”
Roman stopped.
Marisol surprised herself with how quickly the answer came.
“He just woke from a coma. My daughter is six.”
“He asked calmly.”
“She’s still not going in.”
Roman studied her.
Then nodded.
“I’ll tell him.”
Lucia whispered after he walked away, “He looks like a secret agent.”
“Don’t encourage him.”
Twenty minutes later Isabella emerged.
“He remembers who he is. He recognizes me. He knows where he is.”
“That’s good.”
“Yes.”
Yet Isabella looked shaken.
“What?”
“He remembers the blanket.”
Marisol expected that.
Then Isabella said, “He remembers the song.”
Marisol stared.
“What song?”
“The one Lucia sang.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Elena wrote it.”
Marisol’s stomach dropped.
Isabella sat beside her.
“When Elena became pregnant, she made up a lullaby. Dario used to complain that she sang the same two lines over and over because she never finished writing the rest.”
Marisol looked toward Lucia.
Lucia had sung those two lines since before she could speak clearly.
“Who taught her?” Isabella asked.
“No one.”
“Could she have heard it somewhere?”
“I don’t know.”
But Marisol did know.
Lucia used to hum it in her crib.
A nurse eventually told Marisol she could enter alone.
Dario looked smaller than his reputation.
The months in bed had weakened him. His face was pale. His black hair was longer than in newspaper photographs, and his beard had grown thick.
But his eyes were awake.
Intensely awake.
“You’re Lucia’s mother,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Her biological mother?”
Marisol’s expression hardened.
“Her mother.”
Dario caught the correction.
“I’m sorry.”
That surprised her.
“When did you adopt her?”
“She was placed with me as a newborn.”
“What date?”
She told him.
Dario closed his eyes.
“Elena gave birth the night before.”
Marisol folded her arms.
“That does not mean Lucia is your daughter.”
“No.”
“But you think she is.”
“Yes.”
“Because of a blanket?”
“My grandmother made it.”
Marisol said nothing.
Dario continued.
“She embroidered the flowers herself. She ran out of yellow thread and finished three with a darker shade. Elena laughed about it for months.”
“One blanket?”
“One.”
Marisol hated that her heart believed him before her mind could.
“What happened to Elena?”
Dario looked toward the window.
“She died.”
“When?”
“Ten days after the delivery.”
Isabella, standing near the door, looked down.
Marisol noticed.
Dario did not.
“And the baby?”
“We were told she died before I reached the hospital.”
“You never held her?”
His jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Never saw her?”
“No.”
“Who told you she died?”
Dario hesitated.
“People I trusted.”
Marisol laughed once, without humor.
“That sentence doesn’t make me feel better.”
“It shouldn’t.”
He turned toward her.
“I want a DNA test.”
Marisol immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“I won’t force it.”
“You probably could.”
Dario’s expression changed.
“Perhaps.”
The honesty angered her more.
“But I won’t.”
Marisol moved toward the door.
“Lucia has a life.”
“I understand.”
“She has school. Friends. A home.”
“I’m not taking her.”
“You don’t even know whether she’s yours.”
“No.”
He paused.
“But if she is, someone stole six years from both of us.”
Marisol faced him.
“And if she is yours, remember something.”
“What?”
“She didn’t spend six years waiting for a father.”
Dario said nothing.
“She spent six years being my daughter.”
His voice softened.
“I understand that too.”
Marisol left before his calmness could affect her.
That night, Isabella found the photograph again.
This time she brought it to Marisol.
The dark-haired woman holding the baby looked happy.
“Elena,” Isabella said.
Marisol studied her face.
“She’s beautiful.”
“She was.”
“Lucia looks like her.”
The resemblance was undeniable once someone pointed it out.
Not exact.
But the eyes.
The shape of her smile.
Marisol felt strangely guilty for noticing.
As though recognizing another woman inside Lucia somehow weakened her own motherhood.
Isabella seemed to sense it.
“You raised her.”
Marisol’s eyes hardened.
“I know.”
“I wasn’t questioning that.”
“Everyone is about to.”
Before Isabella could answer, Roman entered carrying a folder.
“Hospital records.”
Dario had already requested them.
Roman placed the folder on a table.
“There’s a problem.”
“What kind?”
“The delivery records from six years ago are incomplete.”
Marisol gave a bitter laugh.
“Of course they are.”
Roman continued.
“The system supposedly lost files during a database migration.”
Dario, now awake enough to listen from bed, said, “Supposedly.”
“Lucia’s adoption file is also missing from the agency archive.”
Marisol turned.
“How do you know about the agency?”
“I authorized a records search,” Dario said.
“You did what?”
“I’m trying to understand what happened.”
“You investigated my daughter without asking me?”
“Our daughter may have been stolen.”
The instant he said it, he regretted it.
Marisol’s expression became ice.
“Do not call her that.”
Dario went silent.
“Not until we know. Maybe not even then unless she chooses it.”
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
Roman broke the tension.
“There is one more thing.”
He opened the folder.
“Lucia’s adoption fees were covered by an anonymous charitable trust.”
Marisol frowned.
“I was told the state paid them.”
“It didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
Roman turned a page.
The Kane Foundation logo appeared.
Marisol stared at it.
Dario sat straighter.
“I didn’t authorize that.”
“Someone did,” Roman said.
Six years ago, a Kane charity had paid for Lucia’s adoption.
Three months later, Marisol had been offered a job through the same foundation.
None of it had been luck.
“Who handled the placement?” Dario asked.
“Social worker named Celeste Ward.”
Marisol remembered her immediately.
Kind eyes.
Brown coat.
A soft voice telling Marisol the baby needed someone tonight.
“Where is she?”
Roman’s expression darkened.
“She left the agency five years ago.”
“Address?”
“None.”
“Family?”
“Nothing current.”
“You’re saying she vanished?”
“I’m saying someone made it difficult to find her.”
Marisol felt Lucia squeeze her hand.
The little girl had entered quietly with Isabella.
“Mom?”
Marisol knelt.
“Yes?”
“Am I in trouble?”
The question broke something inside her.
“No.”
She pulled Lucia close.
“Never.”
Dario watched them.
His eyes filled with something Marisol did not want to understand.
Roman’s phone vibrated.
He read the message.
Then looked at Dario.
“We found something in the Foundation archive.”
“What?”
“An envelope.”
Roman placed a photograph of it on the table.
Across the front, written in black ink, were seven words.
FOR DARIO—IF MY LITTLE GIRL SURVIVES.
Underneath was a signature.
May you like
Elena Vidal.
And for the first time since waking, Dario Kane began to shake.
