Chapter 5 - The Crescent Scar
I kept returning to Clara’s faded mark.
Ariel had pointed at it before anything else.
Not the photograph.
Not Glen.
The mark.
“What is it?”
Clara stared at the crescent-shaped scar near her waist.
“Surgery.”
“What surgery?”
She hesitated.
Glen whispered:
“Mom.”
I froze.
Clara looked up.
My stepmother.
His mother.
The word sat between us like broken glass.
“You just called her Mom.”
Glen closed his eyes.
There was nowhere left to hide.
Clara was Glen and Gabriel’s biological mother.
I stared at my husband.
“You told me your mother died when you were ten.”
“She did.”
“No.”
“The woman who raised us died when we were ten.”
The technical distinction disgusted me.
Clara gave birth to twins at seventeen.
Her parents forced an adoption.
The boys were raised by Clara’s older cousin and his wife.
Years later, Clara reentered their lives privately.
“Why marry my father?”
My question came out colder than intended.
Clara answered:
“Because I loved him.”
“Did you know him before Mom died?”
Silence.
Dad looked away.
There it was.
Another layer.
My father and Clara had known each other before the crash.
“How?”
Through the foundation.
Clara had worked as a medical assistant for Dr. Bell.
She helped collect samples.
Glen and Gabriel’s included.
Then she noticed irregularities.
Patient samples being relabeled.
Embryos stored under donor codes.
She told my mother.
My mother began investigating.
“So the two of you were working together?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did Ariel point at your scar?”
Clara started shaking.
Because the scar had come from an emergency surgery the night my mother died.
Clara had been in the second car with Gabriel.
The crash involved two vehicles.
My mother’s.
And theirs.
Clara was injured.
Gabriel pulled me out.
Then helped Clara.
The crescent scar came from that surgery.
Ariel had seen it before.
In a photograph.
The photo she pulled from her pool bag showed Clara recovering afterward.
Gabriel beside her.
Me sitting on the bed.
That was why I appeared.
My childhood memory had been erased by trauma.
Then Clara revealed something worse.
The photograph had been kept inside a sealed family file.
Ariel could not have found it accidentally in our house.
“Where did she get it?”
Ariel answered from the hallway.
“Grandpa’s room.”
My father froze.
“What?”
She held up the pool bag.
“I found lots.”
Dad went pale.
We followed Ariel upstairs to the guest room my father had used the previous weekend.
Inside the closet, behind spare towels, was a small locked metal case.
Except it wasn’t locked anymore.
Ariel had found the key taped underneath.
Inside were photographs.
Medical files.
And one envelope addressed:
For Megan if Gabriel returns.
My father whispered:
“You weren’t supposed to see that yet.”
I turned toward him.
May you like
“I’m done hearing that sentence.”
Then I opened it.
