Rebecca Sterling slapping me inside his office.
No caption.
No explanation.
Just the truth entering the room before they finished decorating the lie.
By 8:00 p.m., the story changed.
By 9:30 p.m., a judge agreed to hear the emergency access petition the next morning.
And at 10:04 p.m., Thomas finally called back.
His voice was low.
“They didn’t take the boxes to the Vanderbilt estate.”
“Where did they go?”
“To a private clinic outside the city.”
My heart stopped.
“Matthew?”
“Yes.”
Then Thomas said the words that made every secret before it feel small:
“Sophia, your father is not in a mansion.
He’s locked in a medical wing.”
Continuing Part 2 from the uploaded story.
The Private Clinic
Thomas said my father was locked in a medical wing.
Not staying.
Not recovering.
Not resting.
Locked.
The word entered me like cold water.
For eighteen years, Matthew Vanderbilt had been a photograph, a deposit line, a name printed beside three hundred thousand dollars every month.
He had been a coward in Thomas’s story.
A billionaire in newspaper clippings.
A man with my face.
A man who had paid instead of appearing.
A man who had let my mother raise me under a leaking roof while he smiled beside Rebecca and Leonard in glossy magazines.
I had hated him before I ever heard his voice.
I still hated him.
But hate is different when the person you hate is trapped somewhere.
Hate wants someone standing tall enough to answer for what they did.
Not hidden behind locked doors and nurses chosen by the woman who destroyed your mother.
I gripped Robert’s desk so hard my fingers hurt.
“What clinic?”
Thomas was breathing hard through the phone.
“St. Aurelia Medical Retreat.”
Robert’s face changed.
He knew the name.
Of course he did.
Every rich person’s secret had a proper address.
“What is that?” I asked.
Robert answered before Thomas could.
“A private long-term care facility.
Technically a wellness and recovery center.
In practice, it is where wealthy families hide inconvenient illness.”
My stomach turned.
“Can they do that?”
Robert’s mouth tightened.
“With enough paperwork, yes.”
Thomas said:
“Rebecca’s SUV entered through the rear gate.
Two security cars followed.
They took your mother’s boxes inside.”
“Why would they take my mom’s things to Matthew?”
Neither man answered.
Then Robert said quietly:
“Because they want him to see them.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“If Matthew is conscious, Rebecca may be trying to force a reaction.
A denial.
A signature.
A recorded statement.”
Thomas cursed under his breath.
I could hear wind through the phone.
He was outside somewhere.
Watching.
Following.
Risking himself because that was what Thomas did when guilt and love became the same road.
I asked:
“Can you see Matthew?”
“No.
The medical wing is behind the main building.
Windows covered.
Security at both entrances.”
“Did they see you?”
“Not yet.”
Robert stood.
“Thomas, leave now.”
“No.”
“Thomas.”
“No,” he said again.
“I spent eighteen years staying one step behind Rebecca Sterling.
Not tonight.”
The line went silent for a moment.
Then I heard something.
A car door.
A distant voice.
Thomas lowered his tone.
“They’re moving one of the boxes again.”
“Where?”
“Side entrance.
A man in a doctor’s coat just took it.”
Robert’s eyes sharpened.
“Get a photo if you can.
Do not get close.”
“I know how to follow people, Collins.”
“Yes,” Robert said.
“And I know how men get killed when they confuse experience with immunity.”
Thomas did not answer.
The line clicked dead.
I stared at my phone.
For a second, the office felt like a room built entirely out of people leaving me behind.
My mother had died with secrets under her mattress.
Thomas had followed Rebecca without me.
Matthew had disappeared behind clinic walls.
Robert knew too much and still kept deciding what I was ready to hear.
I picked up my bag.
Robert moved toward the door.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re going to the clinic.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You work for me now, right?”
His face tightened.
“I represent your interests.”
“Good.
My interest is seeing the man everyone keeps hiding.”
“Sophia, the emergency hearing is tomorrow morning.
If we act recklessly tonight, Rebecca can use it against you.”
“She already called me malicious and financially motivated.”
“And then we released the video of her assaulting you.
That helped because we were disciplined.”
I laughed once.
“Disciplined?”
I pointed at my cheek.
“At my knee.
At my dead mother’s boxes being carried into a private clinic.
At Thomas following the woman who once dragged my pregnant mother across a factory floor.
You want discipline?”
“Yes,” Robert said.
His voice was suddenly hard.
“I want the kind of discipline your mother spent eighteen years practicing while living poor enough to fool billionaires.”
That stopped me.
Not because I liked it.
Because he was right.
My mother had not built her plan by reacting every time Rebecca struck.
She had watched.
Saved.
Bought.
Filed.
Waited.
She had turned humiliation into structure.
I hated waiting.
But maybe that was why my mother had not told me.
She knew I had her rage before I had her patience.
Robert softened his voice.
“You can go to the clinic tomorrow with a court order.
Or you can go tonight as a trespasser Rebecca is waiting to photograph.”
I looked toward the covered window where reporters still waited below.
The story was already spreading.
By morning, strangers would know my name.
By morning, people would call me a liar, a gold digger, a secret daughter, a poor girl chasing a rich man’s grave.
By morning, Rebecca would have polished her version of me until I looked exactly like the threat she needed the world to fear.
I sat back down.
“Fine.”
Robert nodded.
“Good.”
“But I’m not going home.”
“No.”
“I’m not going anywhere Rebecca can find me.”
“I have a safe apartment upstairs.”
I stared at him.
“Of course you do.”
He almost smiled.
“Lawyers who represent frightened people learn practical habits.”
“I’m not frightened.”
“Yes, you are.”
I wanted to argue.
But the truth sat between us, rude and undeniable.
I was frightened.
Not of Rebecca’s money.
Not even of Leonard’s cruelty.
I was frightened because every person I had trusted had turned out to be standing in a story I had not been allowed to read.
Robert walked to the door and spoke quietly to his receptionist.
Within minutes, two staff members appeared.
One brought a first-aid kit for my knee.
The other brought a plain black sweater, a pair of soft shoes, and a paper bag from a pharmacy.
I looked at the shoes.
“What is this?”
Robert said:
“You cannot go to court tomorrow bleeding through your sneakers.”
I almost cried then.
Not because of the shoes.
Because my mother used to buy me clearance shoes one size too big and stuff the toes with tissue, saying feet grow faster than paychecks.
I swallowed hard.
“Thank you.”
The staff woman cleaning my knee was named Elena.
She was older, with kind eyes and a wedding ring she kept twisting while she worked.
She did not ask questions.
She did not stare at my cheek.
She only said:
“This will sting.”
It did.
I welcomed it.
Pain that made sense was almost comforting.
While Elena bandaged my knee, Robert’s phone rang again and again.
Reporters.
Court clerks.
A judge’s assistant.
Someone from Vanderbilt Group threatening defamation.
Someone else from Vanderbilt Group pretending to be reasonable.
Robert handled each call with the calm brutality of a man who had spent decades learning that politeness can be sharper than shouting.
“No, we will not retract.”
“Yes, the video is authentic.”
“No, Miss Miller will not be making a statement tonight.”
“Yes, the petition includes medical access.”
“No, Mrs. Sterling’s office may not contact my client directly.”
My client.
The words sounded unreal.
Yesterday I had been Sophia Miller from a tea shop, counting tips, washing glasses, choosing which bill to pay late.
Tonight, I was a client in a law office with a billionaire’s wife on video slapping me.
The world had not changed slowly.
It had cracked open.
At midnight, Robert took me upstairs.
The safe apartment was small but immaculate.
A bedroom.
A kitchenette.
A bathroom with folded towels.
A couch facing windows covered by thick curtains.
There was a lock on the inside of the door and another on the elevator access.
Robert placed the metal box on the kitchen table.
I stared at it.
“You’re leaving that with me?”
“No.”
He opened a hidden cabinet and placed it inside a safe.
Then he handed me a copy of my mother’s letter.
“The original stays secured.
You can keep this.”
I took it carefully.
My mother’s handwriting.
Sweetheart.
Forgive me.
I was afraid they would take you away from me.
I sat on the couch and read the letter again.
This time slower.
The first time, shock had swallowed the words.
Now they entered one by one.
Matthew Vanderbilt didn’t abandon me because he didn’t love you.
He abandoned me because he was a coward.
But Rebecca Sterling didn’t destroy me just out of jealousy.
She destroyed me because she knew something Matthew wouldn’t find out until many years later:
you weren’t a mistake.
You were the only legitimate daughter who could take everything away from her son.
I read that sentence ten times.
Only legitimate daughter.
Could take everything.
Not because I wanted everything.
I did not even know what everything meant.
A company?
A name?
Shares?
A mansion?
A seat at a table where people like Leonard threw bills at girls on the ground?
What did inheritance mean when the cost had been my mother’s humiliation?
Robert stood near the door.
“You should sleep.”
I looked up.
“Did my mother want revenge?”
He did not answer quickly.
That was another shaped silence.
Finally, he said:
“Your mother wanted correction.”
“Correction?”
“She used that word often.
She said revenge burns too fast.
Correction stays in the record.”
My throat tightened.
That sounded like her.
My mother never wasted anything.
Not fabric.
Not rice.
Not anger.
“Did she hate Matthew?”
Robert’s face softened with something like sadness.
“Yes.”
Then he added:
“And no.”
I hated that answer because it was probably true.
Love does not always die cleanly.
Sometimes it rots into something that still remembers its original shape.
“Did he love her?”
Robert looked away.
“Yes.”
“That makes it worse.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
He looked back at me.
“You’re right.
I don’t.”
That honesty made me quieter.
Robert left me with two security numbers, a burner phone, and strict instructions not to answer unknown calls.
As soon as the door locked behind him, the apartment became too quiet.
I tried to sleep.
I failed.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Rebecca in my mother’s living room.
Then Leonard dropping bills.
Then Matthew’s face in the old photo.
My face.
Someone else’s last name.
At 2:17 a.m., the burner phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I stared at it.
Do not answer unknown calls.
It buzzed again.
Then a text appeared.
No name.
Just words:
Your mother should have taken the money and stayed dead quietly.
My stomach turned to ice.
Another message followed:
You think a video of a slap scares Rebecca?
A third:
Ask Thomas what happened to the first girl who tried to prove Matthew had a child.
I stopped breathing.
The first girl.
There was another one?
I grabbed the phone Robert had given me for emergencies and called him.
He answered on the second ring.
“What happened?”
I read the messages aloud.
He went silent.
Then:
“Do not respond.”
“Who is the first girl?”
“Sophia—”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Lie.
Not a full lie maybe.
But not full truth either.
“Robert.”
He exhaled.
“There were rumors years ago.
Before your mother.
A woman claimed Matthew had gotten her pregnant.”
“What happened?”
“The claim disappeared.”
“People don’t disappear.
Claims disappear when people make them disappear.”
“I know.”
“What was her name?”
“I need to confirm before I tell you.”
“No.
You need to stop treating truth like medicine I might overdose on.”
His voice softened.
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“And I am trying to understand why that is suddenly difficult.”
Silence.
Then he said:
“Her name was Angela Price.”
I wrote it down on the back of my mother’s letter copy because I had nothing else near me.
Angela Price.
“What happened to her?”
“She left New York.”
“Alone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Pregnant?”
“I don’t know.”
“Alive?”
Another silence.
My skin prickled.
“You don’t know if she’s alive.”
“No.”
The apartment seemed to shrink around me.
My mother had not been the first woman Matthew Vanderbilt ruined.
Rebecca had not begun with Maria Miller.
There had been Angela Price.
A first girl.
A first claim.
A first disappearance.
Maybe my mother had known.
Maybe that was why she watched so carefully.
Maybe that was why she waited eighteen years.
Because she understood she had survived something another woman had not.
Robert said:
“I’m coming upstairs.”
“No.
You need to prepare for court.”
“I can do both.”
“Robert.”
“What?”
“If Rebecca wanted me scared, she just succeeded.”
“That is exactly why I’m coming.”
“No,” I said.
My voice steadied in a way that surprised me.
“If I spend the night surrounded by men trying to protect me from information, I’m going to become useless by morning.”
“Sophia—”
“I will lock the door.
I will not answer calls.
I will send you screenshots.
And tomorrow, you will tell the judge someone threatened me after your petition was filed.”
He paused.
Then said:
“You are very much Maria’s daughter.”
“Goodnight, Robert.”
I hung up before he could argue.
Then I did what my mother would have done.
I documented.
Screenshots.
Time stamps.
Forwarded copies.
Notes.
Unknown number.
Threat language.
Angela Price reference.
Potential intimidation after filing.
I placed everything in a folder on the burner phone and emailed it to Robert with the subject:
Evidence.
The word gave me something to hold.
At 4:00 a.m., I finally slept.
Not deeply.
Not peacefully.
But enough to dream.
In the dream, my mother sat at our kitchen table counting money she never spent.
She looked younger.
Her hair was still black.
Her fingers moved fast over bills, contracts, thread, needles, bank slips, all mixed together.
I asked her:
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She did not look up.
She said:
“Because children deserve childhood before inheritance.”
I woke with tears on my face.
Morning came gray and sharp.
Robert knocked at 7:00 with coffee, court clothes, and a face that told me he had not slept either.
The clothes were simple.
Navy dress.
Black flats.
A coat that fit.
Not expensive-looking enough to seem like costume.
Not poor enough for Rebecca to use.
I looked at them.
“Who picked these?”
“Elena.”
“She has better taste than both of us.”
“Yes.”
He handed me coffee.
“I received your email.”
“And?”
“And we are adding witness intimidation to the emergency petition.”
“Good.”
He hesitated.
“I also had my investigator pull Angela Price.”
My heart kicked.
“And?”
“She worked as a receptionist for a Vanderbilt-linked real estate office twenty-three years ago.
Filed a paternity-related inquiry.
Withdrew it two weeks later.
Moved to Pennsylvania.
After that, nothing under that name.”
“Nothing?”
“No employment records.
No marriage record.
No death record.”
“That sounds impossible.”
“It sounds like a name change.”
“Or a burial.”
Robert did not argue.
That scared me more.
At 8:30, we left through a private elevator into an underground garage.
Reporters were still out front.
Robert’s driver took us to the courthouse through streets that looked ordinary and unreal at the same time.
People carried coffee.
Delivery trucks blocked lanes.
A man walked three dogs in matching sweaters.
Nobody knew that my entire life was about to be argued in a courtroom before breakfast.
At the courthouse, cameras waited.
Robert had warned me not to speak.
I did not.
But I did not hide my face either.
That mattered.
Rebecca wanted me to look ashamed.
I gave her nothing.
Inside, the courtroom was smaller than I expected.
Wood benches.
High ceiling.
A judge with silver glasses.
Vanderbilt Group’s attorneys filled one side like a wall of dark suits.
Rebecca sat behind them.
White again.
Pearls again.
No visible crack from the video.
Leonard sat beside her, jaw tight, eyes fixed on me with open hatred.
When I entered, he leaned toward his mother and whispered something.
Rebecca did not look at him.
She looked at me.
Not like a poor adult with information she did not understand anymore.
Like a fire she had failed to put out.
Robert guided me to our table.
My legs trembled once.
Only once.
I sat.
The hearing began.
Vanderbilt’s lead attorney stood first.
He called the petition outrageous.
He called me an opportunist.
He called Robert’s filing a media stunt.
He said Matthew Vanderbilt was receiving excellent medical care and did not wish to be disturbed by false claimants.
False claimants.
I wrote the phrase on Robert’s legal pad.
Then under it:
Ask him why he is afraid of a DNA test already done.
Robert glanced at the note.
The corner of his mouth moved.
Almost a smile.
When it was his turn, he stood calmly.
“Your Honor, my client is not asking this court to award her money today.
She is asking for access to a man who attempted to legally acknowledge her six months ago and has since been isolated by the very spouse whose interests are threatened by that acknowledgment.”
Rebecca’s attorney objected.
The judge waved him down.
Robert continued.
“We have a preliminary acknowledgment bearing Matthew Vanderbilt’s signature.
We have DNA evidence establishing paternity.
We have eighteen years of monthly payments from Matthew Vanderbilt to Sophia Miller’s mother beginning on Sophia’s date of birth.
We have financial documents showing that Sophia Miller may have legal standing connected to debt instruments held for her benefit.
And we have video of Mrs. Sterling assaulting my client yesterday after attempting to pressure her into signing a non-disclosure agreement.”
The judge looked over her glasses.
“Video?”
Robert submitted it.
The courtroom monitor played the clip.
Rebecca entering.
The offer.
The insult.
My voice:
Your fault was dragging her through a factory while she was pregnant.
Leonard:
What?
Rebecca’s jaw tightening.
The acknowledgment draft.
My sentence:
With the woman who was terrified of a seamstress for eighteen years.
Then the slap.
The sound cracked through the courtroom.
Even though I knew it was coming, my cheek burned again.
The judge watched without expression.
Leonard stared at the screen like he had never seen his mother lose control before.
Maybe he had not.
Or maybe he had only seen it when nobody important was recording.
Robert stopped the video.
“Last night, after the petition was filed, my client received threats referencing a prior woman, Angela Price, who allegedly made a similar claim against Matthew Vanderbilt years ago and then disappeared from public records.”
The courtroom changed.
Not loudly.
But enough.
Rebecca’s head turned slightly toward her attorney.
Too fast.
The judge noticed.
So did Robert.
So did I.
Vanderbilt’s attorney stood.
“Your Honor, this is outrageous speculation.”
The judge said:
“Sit down.
You will respond when I ask you to.”
He sat.
The judge turned to Robert.
“What exactly are you requesting?”
Robert answered:
“Immediate independent medical evaluation of Matthew Vanderbilt.
Temporary preservation order preventing alteration or destruction of medical, financial, and estate documents.
Limited supervised access for Sophia Miller and counsel to determine whether Mr. Vanderbilt is competent and whether he wishes to affirm his acknowledgment.”
The judge looked at Vanderbilt’s side.
“And why should I not grant that?”
Their attorney stood again, smoother now.
“Because Mr. Vanderbilt is extremely ill.
Because Miss Miller’s appearance has already caused media disruption.
Because Mrs. Sterling is his lawful spouse and medical proxy.
Because this petition is built on documents whose authenticity has not yet been fully established.”
Robert replied:
“Then let us establish them before they vanish.”
The judge’s eyes sharpened.
Rebecca’s attorney said:
“There is no evidence anything is vanishing.”
Robert placed a printed photograph on the screen.
Thomas’s photo.
Rebecca’s security team removing boxes from my mother’s house.
Then another.
The clinic rear gate.
Then another.
A doctor carrying one of the boxes inside.
The judge leaned forward.
“What am I looking at?”
Robert said:
“Items removed from the home of Sophia Miller’s deceased mother yesterday after Mrs. Sterling obtained entry under a claim of stolen documents.
Those items were transported to the private clinic where Matthew Vanderbilt is being held.”
Rebecca’s attorney snapped:
“Receiving care.”
Robert turned.
“Then let an independent doctor confirm that.”
The room went silent.
That was the whole case in one sentence.
If Matthew was safe, why hide him?
If I was lying, why fear access?
If Rebecca was only protecting her husband, why steal a dead seamstress’s sewing boxes?
The judge called a recess.
We waited in the hallway.
Reporters were not allowed there, but whispers traveled anyway.
Leonard walked past me once.
Close enough that Robert stepped forward.
Leonard stopped.
His eyes moved from my face to my bandaged knee.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
I looked at him.
“Yesterday you threw money at me.”
His mouth tightened.
“Maybe I should have thrown more.”
“No,” I said.
“You should have bent down.”
His face flushed.
“You think because some lawyer found old papers, you’re one of us?”
I smiled faintly.
“No.
That’s the difference between us.
I’m trying very hard not to be.”
His hand twitched.
For one second, I thought he might do what his mother did.
But cameras were not allowed in the hallway.
Robert was watching.
A court officer was watching.
And Leonard Vanderbilt, prince of a house built on reputation, knew the cost of being seen.
He stepped back.
“You have no idea what she’ll do to you.”
I tilted my head.
“Your mother?”
He looked toward the courtroom doors.
For the first time, something like fear crossed his face.
Not for me.
For himself.
Then he said quietly:
“She doesn’t lose.”
I thought of my mother’s patched jackets.
Her red pen.
Her underlined articles.
Her eighteen years of deposits turned into debt instruments.
Her letter.
Her box.
Her plan.
I said:
“Maybe she’s never fought someone who learned from a woman who had nothing left to lose.”
Leonard walked away.
When the judge returned, she ruled quickly.
Emergency preservation order granted.
Independent medical evaluation granted.
Temporary restriction on destruction, transfer, alteration, or removal of relevant estate, medical, corporate, and acknowledgment records granted.
Limited supervised access granted.
My breath caught.
Robert’s hand touched my elbow under the table.
Not celebration.
Steadying.
The judge continued:
“Miss Miller and counsel will be permitted to attend St. Aurelia Medical Retreat this afternoon under court supervision.
Mrs. Sterling will not interfere.
Any attempt to obstruct this order will be treated seriously.”
Rebecca sat perfectly still.
Too still.
Her attorney requested delay.
Denied.
Requested sealing.
Partially granted.
Requested that I be excluded.
Denied.
That last denial entered me like sunlight.
I was not being sent away.
Not this time.
Outside the courthouse, cameras exploded into questions.
Robert told me to keep walking.
I did.
But as we reached the car, one reporter shouted:
“Sophia, what do you want from Matthew Vanderbilt?”
I stopped.
Robert murmured:
“You don’t have to answer.”
I knew that.
I turned just enough for the microphones to catch my voice.
“I want him to say my mother’s name without hiding.”
Then I got into the car.
By noon, that sentence was everywhere.
By one, Vanderbilt Group stock dipped.
By two, St. Aurelia Medical Retreat was surrounded by press vans.
By three, I stood at its gates with Robert, a court-appointed physician, a court officer, and a folder containing the DNA test that said Matthew Vanderbilt was my father.
The clinic looked nothing like a prison.
That was the first insult.
White stone building.
Iron gates.
Trimmed hedges.
A fountain.
Private road lined with trees.
It looked peaceful.
That was how rich people built cages:
beautiful enough that nobody asked who had the key.
Rebecca was waiting in the lobby.
Not alone.
Leonard stood beside her.
Two attorneys.
A clinic director.
A woman in a cream medical coat.
Security near the elevators.
Rebecca’s face was calm again.
She looked at the court order in Robert’s hand as if paper offended her.
“Fine,” she said.
“You want to see him?”
Her eyes moved to me.
“Then see what your mother’s obsession has done.”
I did not answer.
We followed her down a private corridor.
Every step sounded too loud.
My heart beat in my ears.
Robert walked beside me.
The court officer behind us.
The physician ahead.
At the end of the corridor was a locked door.
Then another.
Then a keypad.
Then a nurse’s station.
Then a final room with frosted glass.
Rebecca stopped outside it.
For the first time since I met her, her hand trembled slightly as she reached for the handle.
That tremor told me more than her face ever had.
Inside, the room smelled like antiseptic, expensive flowers, and something faintly sour beneath both.
A hospital bed sat near the window.
Machines hummed softly.
Curtains filtered the afternoon light.
And in the bed was Matthew Vanderbilt.
The man from the photo.
The billionaire.
The coward.
My blood father.
Only he did not look like the magazine covers anymore.
He looked thin.
Too thin.
His skin pale.
His hair white at the temples.
One hand rested on the blanket, fragile and veined.
His eyes were closed.
For one second, all my anger lost its target.
Not vanished.
Never vanished.
But stumbled.
Because the man who had ruined my mother’s life was not standing behind a desk.
He was lying in a bed, trapped inside a body that seemed to have betrayed him before I could ask him anything.
Rebecca spoke first.
“Matthew.”
His eyelids moved.
“Matthew, there is someone here.”
His eyes opened slowly.
Clouded at first.
Then focusing.
He looked at Rebecca.
Then Robert.
Then the court officer.
Then me.
The room stopped.
His face changed.
Not confusion.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Pain.
And something so raw I almost stepped back.
His lips parted.
No sound came.
The physician moved closer.
“Mr. Vanderbilt, can you hear me?”
Matthew ignored him.
His eyes stayed on me.
His hand lifted slightly from the blanket.
Not much.
Barely.
But enough.
Then he whispered one word.
Not Sophia.
Not daughter.
Not forgive me.
He whispered:
“Maria.”
My mother’s name.
The sound broke something open inside me.
Rebecca closed her eyes as if struck.
Leonard stared at Matthew like the floor had disappeared beneath him.
Robert went still beside me.
I stepped closer to the bed.
My voice shook despite everything I had promised myself.
“No,” I said.
“I’m Sophia.”
Matthew’s eyes filled.
He tried to speak again.
The words came broken.
“My girl.”
I did not know if he meant me.
Or my mother.
Or both.
Rebecca moved sharply.
“He is confused.”
The court-appointed physician raised a hand.
“Mrs. Sterling, step back.”
“He is confused,” she repeated.
Matthew’s fingers moved against the blanket.
