Chapter 11 - The Hospital Records and the Truth About My Mother’s Last Days
I wanted to believe she was alive.
I wanted it so badly I felt sick.
Agent Reyes warned me about manipulation.
A photograph could be altered.
A date could be wrong.
We verified the hospital's records.
The woman was Evelyn Vale.
She had survived the fire.
She had suffered serious injuries.
And she had lived another seventeen months.
My aunt had never known.
Neither had Dante.
I sat on the floor outside the records office.
Seventeen months.
Seventeen months when I had believed she was dead.
I wanted to know why she hadn't found me.
The hospital notes explained part of it.
She had lost her memory.
Then recovered fragments.
She had written letters.
None had been mailed.
A social worker had saved copies.
I read them with shaking hands.
My mother wrote about my birthday.
My favorite song.
The way I used to hide oranges beneath my pillow.
She had never stopped looking for me.
Her final letter asked someone to tell me one thing.
“You were loved before you knew your name.”
May you like
I pressed the page against my chest.
Then I cried without trying to stop.
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