Chapter 17
It had been stored separately from the forged authorization and had only recently been recovered during the final review of the clinic’s records.
Rebecca had already verified that it was authentic.
I opened the attachment.
And suddenly, I remembered writing it.
Four years earlier, the clinic had asked us to prepare a personal statement about our hopes for parenthood.
I had written a letter to the child I dreamed of having.
Then, after Alistair told me our embryos were gone, I had forgotten all about it.
Now the words appeared on my screen.
“Dear little one,
I don’t know whether I’ll ever get to meet you.
I don’t know what your face will look like, what your laugh will sound like, or whether you’ll have your father’s eyes or mine.
But if you ever come into this world, I hope you know one thing.
You were loved long before you were born.
And no matter where life takes us, I will always wish I could find you.”
I read the final sentence again.
Then I looked through the living room window.
Matty was asleep on the couch, clutching his favorite stuffed dinosaur.
His little chest rose and fell beneath the blanket.
For four years, I had believed that letter was addressed to a child who would never exist.
But he was here.
He had been here all along.
I walked inside and knelt beside the couch.
I gently brushed the hair away from his forehead.
And then I whispered the words I had waited four years to say.
“I found you, sweetheart.”
He stirred in his sleep and reached for my hand.
I held it.
And for the first time since the day my husband betrayed me, I no longer felt that I had lost everything.
I had lost my marriage.
I had lost the family I thought I knew.
I had lost years I could never recover.
But I had found something Alistair had tried to keep from me.
Something no amount of money, manipulation, or deceit could ever replace.
My son.
And the most extraordinary part of it all was that the woman I had once believed had stolen my husband had become the person who helped me find him.
Paige and I would never forget what happened.
We would never pretend the past hadn’t existed.
But we had decided that Matty’s future would not be defined by the people who had betrayed us.
He would grow up knowing that he was loved.
That he had two mothers who chose to protect him.
And that the truth, however painful, had finally brought him home.
I went to the hospital believing I might lose my husband.
I walked out believing I had lost my entire life.
But behind that hospital door was the little boy I had been searching for without even knowing he was alive.
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And in the end, the man who tried to take everything from me led me straight to the one person who made my world whole again.
THE END.
