Chapter 4 - The Baby in Helen’s Arms
Vanessa should have denied it.
That would have been the sensible move. Grant expected denial, outrage, an accusation that Maya was lying. Instead, Vanessa gave a thin, brittle laugh and reached for the side pocket of the console table.
From it, she pulled a photograph.
She held it between two fingers, almost lazily. “This?”
Grant snatched it from her hand.
It was old, the edges yellowed and cracked with age. A very young Helen stared back at him, maybe sixteen or seventeen, her blond hair loose around her shoulders, her face thinner but unmistakable. She was holding a newborn wrapped in a cream blanket embroidered with the Parker family crest.
Grant’s pulse began to hammer.
He turned the photo over.
On the back, in his father’s handwriting, were six words and a date.
Helen and the boy — July 14.
Grant’s birthday.
The world did not tilt all at once. It shifted in a series of sharp, silent movements inside him. Helen. The boy. His birthday. His father’s writing.
He looked up slowly.
Vanessa crossed her arms, mistaking shock for weakness. “She has been keeping that hidden in your father’s box for decades. I thought you deserved to know what kind of woman you’ve been defending.”
But Grant wasn’t looking at Vanessa anymore.
He was looking at Helen.
Helen’s eyes were wet again, but now the tears were older than humiliation. Older than today.
“Helen,” he said, his voice lower than before, “who is the baby?”
Her lips trembled, but no answer came.
Maya stepped forward, angry now. “You had no right to take that.”
Vanessa snapped back, “No right? She’s been manipulating this family from below the stairs for years.”
Grant’s head turned sharply. “Below the stairs?”
Vanessa held his gaze. “What did you think this was? Gratitude? You barely noticed her until the wedding plans began. Then suddenly she keeps warning you about me, hiding letters, guarding old family property, and—”
“Enough.”
Grant’s voice cut through her.
He looked at Helen again, waiting.
Helen clasped the soaked jacket tighter around herself. “I was going to tell you,” she whispered. “Not like this. Never like this.”
Grant’s grip tightened on the photo.
And when he looked down one more time, he noticed something he had missed in the first shock.
The baby in Helen’s arms was wearing a tiny gold bracelet.
May you like
Engraved with the initials: G.P.
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