I smiled.
“You just taught me how. Now get out. The notary will be here at nine tomorrow morning with the agreement and your confession prepared. If you don’t sign, or if you try to alert Jessica or make any funny moves, the hospital papers and the photos will go to the police and the newspapers. Understood?”
He nodded, defeated.
“Get out of my house.”
He staggered to his feet. He went upstairs, presumably to get some things. I stayed in the living room listening to the sounds from above. Ten minutes later, he came down with a small suitcase. He didn’t look at me. He walked out the front door. The sound of it closing was final.
Shortly after, Ethan came running down the stairs. He looked frightened.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s gone.”
“Why did he leave?”
I looked at him. The boy I had raised. The impostor. The enemy in my house.
“He’s gone to Jessica’s house,” I said coolly. “To your real mother’s. He doesn’t have to pretend here anymore.”
Ethan’s eyes widened.
“What? No. He wouldn’t leave without me. He promised me.”
“He promised you a life that didn’t belong to you,” I interrupted. “That life is over. Things are going to change now, Ethan. Drastically. You decide if you can live with that change or if you want to go with them. But think it over carefully. There won’t be a private school there. No new consoles. No trips. There will be a small apartment, a mother who works as a sales clerk, and a father with no steady job and a lot of resentment.”
His face reflected first disbelief, then panic, and finally impotent rage.
“You’re a witch. You threw him out. You threw him out because of me.”
“No,” I said, suddenly exhausted, but unyielding. “You all threw yourselves out. Now go to your room. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He stood his ground, trembling with fury. For a moment, I thought he might rush me, but he didn’t. He just shot me one last look of pure hatred and ran up the stairs, slamming his door again.
I sank into the armchair. The silence of the house was deafening. I had won the battle. I had evicted the enemy. I had reclaimed my territory. But the war—the war for my daughter, for my life, to undo eight years of lies—was just beginning. And now, in the opposing trench, it wasn’t just William. It was Jessica. And it was Ethan, an eight-year-old boy who hated me and who now had every reason in the world to do so.
The next day, as the notary was on his way, I looked out the window. I needed a plan. Not just to defend myself, but to attack, to reclaim what was mine. And for the first time in eight years, I knew exactly what that was. A girl with grayish-green eyes and hands capable of fixing faucets who lived in a group home and didn’t know how to back down. Her name was Valerie, and she was my daughter.
The notary left at ten in the morning with the signed documents. William had signed everything with a trembling hand, barely looking at the papers. His detailed confession, drafted by my lawyer from my account and signed by him before witnesses, was now in my safe. It was my insurance policy.
Ethan had locked himself in his room. I told Louisa not to take him breakfast. If he was hungry, he could come down. He didn’t. I didn’t have time for his tantrums. I had a more important appointment.
Frank had given me Jessica’s address. A block of subsidized housing in Queens. The building lobby had graffiti. Several of the mailboxes were dented. I took the elevator, which smelled of fried food and cheap disinfectant, to the fourth floor. I knocked on the door of 4C. I waited. I heard hurried footsteps, then a:
“Who is it?”
The voice was female, young, tinged with anxiety.
“It’s Charlotte Hayes. William’s wife. We need to talk.”
A heavy silence. Then the sound of a chain being unlatched, and the door opened a few inches. Jessica appeared in the crack. She was younger than she looked in the photos, but her eyes were swollen, her face bare of makeup. She was wearing a worn-out sweatsuit. She looked at me with a mixture of fear and defiance.
“What do you want? William told me—not to come near you.”
“William isn’t giving orders anymore,” I said.
And without waiting for an invitation, I gently pushed the door open and walked in. The apartment was small, but clean and tidy. Cheap furniture. Brightly colored cushions. Photos of Ethan everywhere. On the living-room coffee table, a photo of the three of them—William, Jessica, and Ethan smiling at an amusement park. My fake family.
Jessica closed the door and stood with her back to it, as if trapped.
“What did you come here for? To humiliate me? I know you have everything. The big house, the money. I only have this.”
Her tone was pitiful, but there was a spark of resentment.
“I didn’t come to talk about what I have, Jessica. I came to talk about what you took from me.”
I took out my phone and showed her the photo of the hospital records, zoomed in on the page with her name and the crossed-out notation.
“Tell me about the twelfth of September, 2018.”
She went pale.
“That—that’s old. It was a tragedy. I lost my baby.”
“No,” I interrupted with glacial calm. “You didn’t lose your baby. Your baby is alive. He lives in my house. His name is Ethan. And my baby, my daughter, lives in a group home. Her name is Valerie.”
Jessica collapsed onto a sofa as if her legs had turned to jelly.
“No. William said you would never find out. That everything was taken care of.”
“William lied. Just like he lied to me. Just like he probably lied to both of us. He told me it was a plan to give your son a future. What did he tell you? That I was a cold witch who didn’t deserve to be a mother? That together you would be a family when you got my money?”
She didn’t answer, covering her face with her hands.
“You don’t understand. We were young. We were scared. William said it was the only way.”
