“But Clara…”
“Yes?”
“She asked something strange before she left.”
“What?”
“She wanted to know whether your clinic was entirely yours, or whether Ivy would eventually inherit it.”
I stopped breathing.
“She asked about Ivy?”
“Yes. I thought it was odd.”
So did I.
Because Ivy was seven.
Why would Briana care about her inheritance?
That afternoon, I received another message from my mother.
“Clara, please stop this. Briana is terrified. Your father hasn’t slept. We can work something out if you’ll just be reasonable.”
I replied:
“Did you know Briana used my signature without permission?”
Three minutes passed.
Then Mom wrote:
“Your sister only wanted to protect the family’s future.”
I stared at the screen.
That was the first time my mother had admitted anything.
I typed:
“Did you help her?”
No response.
Then:
“Mom?”
Still nothing.
Finally, almost twenty minutes later:
“Everything we did was for the family.”
I forwarded the message to Elena.
She called immediately.
“Don’t respond again.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother just told you more than she intended.”
That evening, Travis asked to meet.
I hesitated.
He was Briana’s boyfriend.
I didn’t know whether I could trust him.
But he had brought me evidence when he could have stayed silent.
We met at a diner near the highway.
He was already sitting in a booth when I arrived.
Two cups of coffee sat untouched between us.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
I sat down.
“Tell me what you know.”
He rubbed his palms together.
“Briana and I met years ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“How many years?”
He looked at me.
“Almost eight.”
I stared.
“She told me you met this summer.”
“We reconnected this summer. But we knew each other before.”
He hesitated.
“We had a brief relationship when I was thirty and she was twenty-one.”
My heartbeat changed.
“Where?”
“In Traverse City. I was working on a construction project. She was spending the summer there.”
The restaurant seemed to fade around me.
Eight years ago.
Briana had spent a summer near Traverse City.
She came home pregnant a few months later.
“Travis,” I said slowly, “what happened after that?”
He looked down.
“We broke up. She stopped answering my calls for a while. Then she contacted me and told me she was pregnant.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
I couldn’t speak.
He continued.
“I wanted to be involved. I told her that. But she said she needed time.”
I stared at his face.
His dark hair.
His gray-blue eyes.
A faint crease in his left cheek when he spoke.
Something about him had seemed familiar from the first moment I met him.
I hadn’t understood why.
“What happened to the baby?” I asked.
Travis’s expression changed.
He looked toward the window.
“She died.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
His voice became barely audible.
“Briana told me the baby died shortly after birth.”
I couldn’t move.
He swallowed hard.
“I never got to hold her.”
For several seconds, the diner was silent except for the clatter of dishes behind the counter.
Then I whispered:
“Travis, what was the baby’s name?”
He looked at me.
“Briana wouldn’t tell me. She said it was too painful.”
I gripped the edge of the table.
“And when did she tell you the baby died?”
He gave me a date.
A date I knew better than my own birthday.
Because on that same day, seven years earlier, I had been sitting in a hospital room holding a healthy newborn girl.
Ivy.
It felt as though the floor had disappeared beneath me.
“Clara?” Travis asked.
I couldn’t answer.
He leaned forward.
“Are you okay?”
I took a trembling breath.
“Travis, I need to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“Did Briana ever tell you she was considering adoption?”
His expression went blank.
“Adoption?”
I watched the color drain from his face.
“No,” he whispered.
I closed my eyes.
Then I told him.
Not everything.
Not yet.
But enough.
“Briana gave birth to a healthy baby girl seven years ago.”
Travis stared at me.
I continued.
“She told our family the father wanted nothing to do with the pregnancy.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“She asked me to adopt the baby.”
“No…”
“And I did.”
His hands began trembling.
“Clara…”
I felt tears running down my cheeks.
“That baby was Ivy.”
He stared at me as though I had spoken in a language he didn’t understand.
For several seconds, he didn’t move.
Then he whispered:
“You’re telling me my daughter might be alive?”
I nodded slowly.
“I don’t know whether you’re Ivy’s biological father. We need to establish that. But the timing matches.”
Travis covered his mouth.
His eyes filled.
He looked down at the table.
Then he began to cry.
Not the controlled tears of a man trying to remain composed.
He cried with the kind of grief that seems to come from somewhere too deep for words.
“I bought her a blanket,” he whispered.
I sat motionless.
“A yellow one. With little white stars.”
I knew that blanket.
It had been tucked inside the bag Briana gave me when Ivy was born.
I had always assumed my sister bought it.
I had kept it in a cedar chest in Ivy’s bedroom.
Travis looked up.
“I gave Briana that blanket before she had the baby.”
My hands began shaking.
He continued.
“She said she didn’t want me at the hospital. Then her mother called and told me there had been complications.”
“My mother?”
He nodded.
“Patricia called me.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“She told me the baby was in intensive care. She said Briana couldn’t speak to me.”
He swallowed.
“Then she asked whether I could help cover medical expenses.”
“How much?”
His face tightened.
“Eighteen thousand dollars.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“I sent the money. I would’ve sent more. Then two days later, Patricia called again and said the baby hadn’t survived.”
I couldn’t speak.
Travis wiped his face.
“I asked where she was buried.”
He looked at his hands.
“Patricia said the baby had been cremated privately. She said Briana couldn’t bear to discuss it.”
My mother’s voice echoed in my memory.
Some truths do more damage than lies.
I suddenly understood.
My mother hadn’t merely helped Briana hide an adoption.
She had told a father his living daughter was dead.
And she had taken money from him while doing it.
I pushed my coffee away.
“We need to talk to Elena.”
Travis nodded.
Then he asked the question that tore me apart.
“Does Ivy know?”
I shook my head.
“She knows she’s adopted. She doesn’t know Briana is her birth mother. And until today, I didn’t know who her father might be.”
He pressed his hands together.
“I don’t want to frighten her.”
“Neither do I.”
He looked at me with terrible uncertainty.
“Clara, I don’t want to take her away from you.”
I looked into his eyes.
“You couldn’t simply do that. I’m her legal mother. But if you’re her biological father, she deserves the truth about where she comes from.”
He nodded quickly.
“Of course.”
Then his voice broke.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Is she happy?”
That question nearly destroyed me.
I thought of Ivy laughing beneath the sprinkler.
I thought of her sleeping with her stuffed rabbit tucked under her chin.
I thought of the little girl who believed everyone in her drawing loved her.
“Most of the time,” I whispered. “Yes.”
Travis covered his eyes again.
“Thank God.”
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
Then I remembered something.
“Travis?”
He looked up.
“Does Sophie know anything about this?”