Chapter 8 — “I Wasn’t Responsible for Making Her Safe”
Adeline looked at Stellan.
“Are you asking why I didn’t surrender something she had no right to demand?”
Stellan shook his head.
“No.”
“I don’t know what I’m asking.”
“I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
Adeline sat beside him.
“I would have given her every piece of paper in that mansion if I believed Merrick was about to be hurt.”
“But when she first took him upstairs, she said she was carrying him to the nursery.”
Stellan listened.
Adeline continued.
Rowena had confronted her again that morning.
“Give me the adoption document.”
Adeline refused.
Merrick began crying in his bassinet.
Rowena picked him up.
Adeline did not initially object.
Rowena was his grandmother.
She had held him hundreds of times.
Then she said:
“Perhaps you will think more clearly after you understand what it feels like when someone interferes with your family.”
Adeline became alarmed.
She followed Rowena upstairs.
Rowena walked toward the balcony.
Adeline demanded Merrick back.
Rowena refused.
Then the argument escalated into the scene Stellan had witnessed.
“I didn’t know she would go anywhere near the railing,” Adeline said.
“The second she did, I stopped arguing about the document.”
“I begged for Merrick.”
Stellan lowered his head.
“I’m sorry.”
Adeline looked toward him.
“For asking?”
“For even letting my fear make the question sound like her behavior became your responsibility.”
Adeline nodded.
“Thank you.”
Stellan looked through the hospital-room window toward Merrick.
“She almost lost my son because she couldn’t stand losing control of a story about me.”
Adeline took his hand.
“Yes.”
He started crying again.
“And the worst part is that I still love her.”
Adeline squeezed his hand.
“Of course you do.”
“She raised you.”
“Loving her doesn’t make what she did acceptable.”
“And being furious with her doesn’t erase the years she was your mother.”
Stellan looked toward her.
Those words sounded almost exactly like Evelyn’s letter.
Two things could be true at once.
Rowena had raised him.
Rowena had loved him.
Rowena had also lied to him.
Controlled the truth.
Prevented Evelyn from identifying herself as his mother.
And now endangered Merrick while trying to keep that secret buried.
The next morning, Stellan contacted the family attorney.
Not to challenge the adoption.
The adoption was valid.
Not to change his legal identity.
He wanted one thing:
Every record connected to the adoption.
When the attorney delivered the file two days later, Stellan discovered Rowena had omitted one final fact.
Evelyn had made another formal request when Stellan turned eighteen.
And Rowena had responded to it in writing.