Chapter 10 - The Letter Patricia Burned
Patricia burned the 2023 Christmas letter.
Not all copies.
Henry kept drafts.
But the signed original disappeared.
Why burn it?
Because Henry had finally decided to tell Claire everything.
Anna.
Sophie.
Raymond.
J-4.
Claire’s parentage uncertainty.
All of it.
Patricia begged him to wait until after Christmas.
He refused.
They argued.
Then Henry clutched his chest.
Collapsed.
Patricia called 911.
No murder.
No poison.
No hidden killer.
A heart attack during an argument.
Patricia had spent three years believing she caused it.
Not medically.
Emotionally.
So she buried the letters deeper.
Then Lily started asking questions.
“Why doesn’t Grandpa come back?”
“Why does Grandma cry in the attic?”
“Who is Sophie’s real mom?”
That last one terrified Patricia.
How did Lily know?
Daniel stared.
“When did she ask that?”
“Two months ago.”
Why would Lily ask about Sophie’s real mother?
Claire remembered.
Lily and Sophie had been playing in the attic during Thanksgiving.
They found a photograph.
Anna holding baby Sophie?
No.
Henry holding young Sophie with a note on the back:
FOR ANNA, WHEN SAFE.
Lily could read enough to ask questions.
Patricia panicked.
She took the photograph.
Told Lily never to mention it.
Then Lily told Claire anyway.
Claire already stressed from anonymous emails.
She began seeing Lily’s curiosity as danger.
A six-year-old became a threat to adult secrecy.
That explained the Christmas dinner.
The spilled juice was not the real trigger.
Patricia had seen Lily reaching toward the sideboard earlier.
Where Henry’s letter box sat.
Patricia thought Lily had found it again.
Her anger exploded through an accident.
None of that excused what happened.
But it made it intelligible.
Daniel understood now what Henry meant:
Punishing a child because adults are frightened of what the child represents.
Then Claire asked:
“Who sent the anonymous emails?”
Raymond shook his head.
“Not me.”
He had no reason.
He wanted resolution.
The emails weaponized Anna’s history.
Someone wanted Claire afraid.
Who?
Then Raymond gave them another record.
J-4 had not remained in storage.
It was transferred.
Four years earlier.
Without Claire’s knowledge.
Daniel froze.
“To who?”
A gestational carrier.
Identity sealed.
Transfer successful.
Live birth documented.
Claire stared.
“You're saying I have another biological child?”
Potentially.
Her egg.
Andrew Cole’s sperm.
Which would make the child genetically Claire’s, but not Jacob’s or Daniel’s.
Claire looked sick.
“Where is the child?”
Raymond whispered:
“That is what Henry was trying to find when he died.”
Now the letters meant something larger.
Lily’s secret was not that she was unwanted.
It was that her existence sat beside another child Claire never knew she had.
Then Daniel asked:
“Who authorized the transfer?”
Raymond looked ashamed.
“Patricia.”
Everyone turned.
Patricia shook her head violently.
“No.”
Signature.
Again.
Patricia Whitmore.
Again possibly forged.
Same handwriting expert who later examined both placements found something alarming.
The forged custody signature from 2013.
The forged embryo authorization from 2022.
Same writer.
One person had been using Patricia’s identity for nearly a decade.
Who?
The answer appeared in Henry’s draft:
I finally know who keeps signing Patricia’s name.
Initials:
May you like
A.L.
Anna Lewis.
