Michael looked at Eleanor.
She answered.
“Because she was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Of losing you.”
I didn’t understand.
Anna had apparently spent years believing that her biological parents had abandoned her.
When she found out the truth, she was furious.
She wanted answers.
But she also wanted to know whether I had wanted her.
Michael had told her the truth.
He’d told her that I had never willingly given her away.
That I’d believed she had died.
That I’d mourned her for 22 years.
Anna eventually agreed to meet me.
But then she found out she was pregnant.
And she became afraid.
She didn’t know how to walk into my life after all those years.
So she asked Michael to wait.
Then, tonight, she went into labor.
Something went wrong.
She had a massive hemorrhage.
Doctors couldn’t save her.
But before she died, she told the nurses exactly where she wanted Lucy to go.
