Adrian gripped the windowsill.
“Malcolm arranged it,” Clara said. “The clinic director owed him money. The baby was reported stillborn. Sofia was sedated and grieving. By the time the nurse found the courage to tell her, the child was gone.”
The cruelty of it was so quiet, so administrative, that it felt almost impossible to understand. No cliff. No scream. No visible hands.
Just papers.
A signature.
A baby removed from her mother’s arms before her mother even knew she had lived.
“What happened to her?” I whispered.
Clara looked at Marianne. “She was placed through a private adoption. Sealed records. I spent years following traces. Sofia tried too, until she became afraid that searching would expose Elena.”
My eyes stung.
My mother had carried that alone.
“Did she find her?” Adrian asked.
Clara nodded.
Adrian stopped breathing.
“She found her name,” Clara said. “But not her heart. Not her life. By then the girl was grown, and Sofia was sick. She wrote one letter and never sent it.”
