Chapter 5 - WHAT MY GRANDMOTHER HIDFinding Maria Vasquez took forty-eight hours.
Not at my house.
Not at Claire’s office.
At a quiet restaurant halfway between Richmond and the North Carolina border.
Daniel insisted on coming.
I insisted he come too.
There was nothing romantic left in my memories of Aaron, but there was unfinished damage, and I wasn’t walking into it alone.
When Aaron entered the restaurant, I recognized him immediately.
Older.
Broader.
Gray beginning at his temples.
But the same eyes.
He stopped when he saw me.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Then he walked over.
“Rebecca.”
“Aaron.”
Daniel stood and offered his hand.
“Daniel.”
Aaron shook it.
“Good to meet you.”
The weirdness of the sentence nearly made me laugh.
Claire sat beside us with a recorder.
“With everyone’s consent, I’d like to document the conversation.”
Aaron nodded.
I did too.
Claire began.
“Aaron, tell Rebecca what you told me.”
He looked at me.
“I didn’t leave because I wanted to.”
I swallowed.
“What happened?”
“Your father came to the garage.”
My hands went cold.
“He said you were pregnant.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
Daniel turned toward me.
“I wasn’t pregnant.”
“I know that now.”
Aaron rubbed both hands over his face.
“He told me you’d taken a test. Said you were terrified. Said the relationship had been a mistake and you wanted him to handle it.”
“Handle what?”
Aaron reached into a worn leather briefcase.
He removed a plastic sleeve.
Inside was a photocopy of a check.
Twenty-five thousand dollars.
Signed by Robert Whitmore.
Payable to Aaron Michael Price.
My breathing stopped.
“I never saw this.”
“I didn’t cash it.”
“Then why—”
“He told me if I stayed near you, he’d destroy my scholarship.”
I stared at him.
“He couldn’t do that.”
“I was nineteen. He brought paperwork from the college disciplinary office.”
“What paperwork?”
“An accusation that I had stolen tools from the garage.”
Aaron shook his head.
“It was false. Your father said the garage owner would confirm it.”
“Would he?”
“At the time, I believed him.”
Aaron’s voice tightened.
“My father had just had a stroke. My mother was drowning in medical bills. I couldn’t risk losing school.”
“So you left.”
“I tried to call you.”
“My number changed.”
“Exactly.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“Your phone was disconnected the next morning.”
I remembered my father handing me a new phone.
He said the family had changed carriers.
Aaron continued.
“I sent letters to your dorm.”
“I never received them.”
“I mailed seven.”
My eyes burned.
“Seven?”
“Then I mailed one to your grandmother.”
That caught Claire’s attention.
“Eleanor?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I got a letter back.”
Aaron reached into the briefcase again.
This time he handed me an old envelope.
The return address was my grandmother’s.
Inside was a note.
Aaron, I have been told Rebecca does not wish contact. I do not believe everything I am being told. Please keep copies of anything Robert gave you. Someday she may need the truth. — Eleanor
Tears blurred the ink.
Even then, Grandma knew.
Not everything.
But enough.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
Aaron looked ashamed.
“I did.”
I raised my head.
“When?”
“Eight months later.”
“I was still at St. Matthew’s.”
“I know.”
He looked at Claire.
“Tell her.”
Claire took a breath.
“Aaron was arrested outside your parents’ home.”
I stared.
“For what?”
“Trespassing.”
Aaron laughed bitterly.
“I stood at the gate asking to speak to you.”
“My parents said you tried to break in?”
“Yes.”
A memory surfaced.
My mother telling me some unstable boy had shown up.
She never said it was Aaron.
“What happened to the charge?”
“Dropped. But your father got a restraining order.”
“Against you?”
“Based on an affidavit.”
Aaron pulled out another document.
The signature at the bottom was mine.
Except it wasn’t.
The statement claimed I was afraid of him.
That he had threatened me.
That I wanted no contact.
I stared at the signature.
“That’s forged.”
“I know.”
Daniel leaned closer.
“Can it be proven?”
Claire answered.
“Likely.”
I felt sick.
For fifteen years, my parents had rewritten my own life while I lived inside it.
“What does this have to do with Mom saying they ‘cleaned up my first mistake’?”
Aaron looked confused.
“I don’t know.”
Claire did not.
Her expression was too controlled.
“What?”
She hesitated.
“There’s another record.”
“What record?”
She slid a thin file toward me.
“A medical billing entry.”
My stomach dropped.
“For what?”
“Your mother’s insurance archive included a claim from the same month Aaron left.”
“How did you get that?”
“Your father’s lawsuit allowed us to request preservation. One of the old files appeared in records already held by the family office.”
She turned the page.
The patient name was mine.
The provider was an obstetrics clinic.
I read the service description.
Pregnancy confirmation.
“No.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor.
“No. I was never pregnant.”
Claire remained calm.
“The record says you were.”
“I would remember being pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s wrong.”
“Possibly.”
I looked at Aaron.
His face had gone white.
Claire turned another page.
A second procedure appeared three weeks later.
Not an abortion.
Not prenatal care.
A hospital admission.
I read the diagnostic code.
Then the discharge notation.
My knees weakened.
Daniel caught my arm.
“What?”
I couldn’t speak.
Claire did.
“Rebecca, according to these records, you were treated after a pregnancy loss.”
“That never happened.”
“I believe you.”
“I would remember!”
Claire nodded.
“Yes.”
My breathing became shallow.
Then I remembered something I had not thought about in years.
A winter break.
My mother telling me I had developed a severe stomach infection.
Three days missing from my memory.
Waking in my childhood bedroom.
Pain in my abdomen.
Blood.
My mother saying my period had become unusually heavy because of medication.
I gripped the table.
“Oh my God.”
Daniel wrapped an arm around me.
Aaron looked devastated.
Claire spoke carefully.
“We need the hospital records.”
“Get them.”
“We will.”
“Get everything.”
“I will.”
Then Aaron said something almost too quietly to hear.
“There’s one more thing.”
I looked at him.
He reached into the briefcase.
“I didn’t come here only because Claire called.”
He placed an old photograph on the table.
My grandmother stood outside her home.
Beside her was a young woman holding a baby.
On the back, written in Grandma’s handwriting, were five words:
In case Rebecca ever asks.
I looked at Aaron.
“What baby?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Claire turned the photograph toward the light.
There was a date stamped in the corner.
Seven months after my mysterious hospital admission.
My pulse thundered.
“That’s impossible.”
Nobody answered.
I stared at the baby.
Then at the young woman holding it.
And I realized I knew her.
She had worked in my parents’ house when I was a teenager.
May you like
Her name was Maria.
And she had disappeared the same year Aaron did.
Related Stories
