PART 3: THE DAUGHTER MY HUSBAND HID FROM ME FOR FORTY-THREE YEARS
I stood on that porch holding the yellowed envelope while my husband stared at the floorboards like they might open up and swallow him.
“What did you just say, Alden?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Joanne, please. Come inside.”
“No.”
“People can hear us.”
“Then you’d better start telling the truth before I give them something worth hearing.”
Across the road, Miriam Yoder’s rocking chair stopped moving.
Alden noticed.
His jaw tightened.
But I didn’t care anymore.
Forty-five years of marriage had taught me how to recognize when my husband was hiding something.
And that night, he looked like a man carrying a secret too heavy to hold.
“Our baby,” I whispered. “The little girl the doctors told me died in 1983. What does she have to do with this letter?”
Alden closed his eyes.
“She didn’t die, Joanne.”
The world went silent.
Not the ordinary kind of silence.
The kind where your ears start ringing and your knees forget how to hold you.
I grabbed the porch railing.
“What?”
He reached toward me.
I stepped back.
“Don’t you touch me.”
“Joanne…”
“YOU TOLD ME SHE WAS DEAD!”
My voice carried across the pasture.
A goat bleated.
Somewhere in the distance, a dog started barking.
Alden looked toward Miriam’s house again.
And that was when I knew.
Even now, even after everything, he was more worried about his reputation than my broken heart.
I tore open the envelope.
Inside was a letter dated September 14, 2022.
An attorney named Raymond Bell had written to Alden concerning an inheritance claim connected to a woman named Rebecca Mercer.
I read the first paragraph.
Then the second.
By the third, my hands were trembling so badly I could barely hold the paper.
Rebecca Mercer.
Born November 9, 1983.
Biological mother: Joanne Kittle.
Biological father: Alden Kittle.
I stared at those words.
My daughter.
My baby.
The child I’d buried in my heart for forty-three years.
Alive.
Somewhere in Missouri.
And my husband had known.
For four years.
I looked up at him.
“How?”
He swallowed.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
“HOW, ALDEN?”
He sat heavily on the porch steps.
And finally, the story began coming out.
In November 1983, I’d gone into labor six weeks early.
We lived almost an hour from the hospital.
There had been complications.
Heavy bleeding.
Emergency surgery.
I remembered bright lights.
A nurse telling me to count backward.
Then nothing.
When I woke up, Alden was sitting beside my bed.
He’d held my hand and told me our daughter hadn’t survived.
He said she was too small.
Too weak.
That the doctors had done everything they could.
I asked to see her.
He told me it was better not to.
I asked where she was buried.
He said the hospital had handled the arrangements.
And I believed him.
Because he was my husband.
Because I was twenty-five years old.
Because I was grieving so badly I could hardly breathe.
For months afterward, I’d wake up hearing a baby cry.
I’d walk into the little nursery we’d painted pale yellow.
I’d sit in the rocking chair holding the blanket my mother had crocheted.
And Alden would tell me to stop torturing myself.
“She’s gone, Joanne. You’ve got to move on.”
I never did.
Now I was looking at a letter that said my little girl had lived.
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
Alden stared at his boots.
“My mother arranged it.”
His mother.
Evelyn Kittle.
The woman I’d cared for through three years of cancer.
The woman whose sheets I’d washed.
Whose medicine I’d organized.
Whose hand I’d held the night she died.
“What did Evelyn arrange?”
He took a shaky breath.
“An adoption.”
I felt sick.
“A WHAT?”
He flinched.
“Mom knew a couple who couldn’t have children. The Mercers. They lived outside Springfield.”
I couldn’t speak.
“They offered to take the baby. Mom said we’d never afford the hospital bills, and with you nearly dying…”
He stopped.
I waited.
“Finish that sentence.”
He looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“She said you weren’t strong enough to raise a sick baby.”
I stared at him.
“And you believed her?”
He said nothing.
“YOU BELIEVED HER?”
“I was young!”
“So was I!”
“I didn’t know what else to do!”
“You could’ve asked me!”
He lowered his head.
And then he whispered something that made my stomach turn.
“Mom said if you knew the baby survived, you’d never agree.”
I stepped backward.
Because suddenly, I understood.
This hadn’t been some terrible misunderstanding.
This wasn’t a confused young father making one bad decision.
They had taken my daughter while I was unconscious.
They had told me she died.
And they’d let me mourn her for forty-three years.
I covered my mouth.
“Oh, God.”
Alden began crying.
Real tears.
But they meant nothing to me.
Not anymore.
“Rebecca grew up with the Mercers,” he continued. “They were good people.”
“You don’t get to tell me that.”
“Joanne…”
“You don’t get to tell me anything about the childhood you stole from me.”
He fell silent.
I looked down at the letter again.
Rebecca Mercer.
My daughter’s name.
I ran my finger over it.
“How did you find out where she was?”
Alden wiped his face with his sleeve.
“She started asking questions about her birth family. Her adoptive father died, and she found some old paperwork. She hired an attorney.”
“And the attorney found you.”
He nodded.
“Four years ago.”
“Why didn’t Rebecca contact me?”
His silence told me there was more.
“Alden?”
“She tried.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“She sent letters. To the farmhouse.”
I looked toward the little mailbox at the end of our gravel lane.
The same mailbox I’d walked to every afternoon after retiring.
The same one where birthday cards and grocery coupons arrived.
“You took them?”
He nodded.
“How many?”
“I don’t remember.”
“HOW MANY?”
“Six. Maybe seven.”
I felt something inside me break.
Six letters.
Six chances to meet my daughter.
Six times my husband had decided I didn’t deserve the truth.
I folded the letter carefully.
Then I walked into the house.
Alden followed.
“Joanne, please don’t do anything rash.”
I opened the kitchen drawer and took out a small spiral notebook.
The one where I kept telephone numbers, recipes, and important addresses.
Then I reached for my phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“The attorney.”
“It’s nearly nine!”
“Then I’ll leave a message.”
He grabbed my wrist.
Not hard enough to bruise.
But hard enough to remind me of all the years I’d let him decide what I could and couldn’t do.
I looked down at his hand.
“Let go.”
He hesitated.
“Alden.”
He released me.
I dialed the number printed on the letter.
A recorded voice answered.
I left my name, my phone number, and one sentence.
“This is Joanne Kittle. I believe I’m Rebecca Mercer’s biological mother, and I need someone to call me as soon as possible.”
Then I hung up.
Alden stood beside the refrigerator looking like a man waiting for a sentence to be handed down.
“There’s something else,” he whispered.
I turned.
“What now?”
He stared at the floor.
“The money.”
I felt my chest tighten.
“The eight hundred and fifty dollars?”
He nodded.
“That was for Rebecca.”
I frowned.
“Why would you send my pension money to our daughter without telling me?”
“Not directly to her.”
“Then to whom?”
“Darlene.”
I remembered the photograph.
The woman standing beside Alden’s truck.
The handwritten message.
Can’t wait until we’re together forever.
My mouth went dry.
“Who is Darlene Mercer?”
Alden said nothing.
And I knew, before he answered, that the next truth would hurt.
“She was Rebecca’s adoptive aunt,” he finally said. “She helped raise her.”
“And?”
He swallowed.
“And we’ve been seeing each other.”
I laughed.
A strange, broken sound.
Not because it was funny.
Because there was simply nowhere left for the pain to go.
“My God, Alden.”
He took a step toward me.
“It wasn’t like that at first.”
“Don’t.”
“She contacted me when Rebecca started asking questions. We talked. We met…”
“Don’t.”
“Joanne, I never meant to hurt you.”
I looked at him.
Forty-five years.
Forty-five years of laundry.
Meals.
Truck payments.
Holidays.
Family funerals.
Anniversaries.
And he’d built an entirely separate life using money I’d earned carrying mail through Arkansas heat, rain, and winter ice.
“Did you give Darlene my pension money?”
He hesitated.
“Some of it.”
“All those transfers?”
“Most of them.”
I closed my eyes.
Forty-six payments of eight hundred and fifty dollars.
Thirty-nine thousand one hundred dollars.
Money I could’ve used to fix the roof.
Replace the water heater.
Make my home comfortable.
Instead, I’d heated bathwater on the stove while my husband supported another woman.
When I opened my eyes, he was reaching for the kitchen chair.
“Where am I supposed to sleep?” he asked.
I nearly laughed again.
Of all the questions in the world.
After everything he’d confessed.
That was what mattered to him.
I pointed toward the front door.
“Somewhere else.”
He stared at me.
“You can’t throw me out of my own house.”
I held up the certified deed I’d brought home from the courthouse.
“Funny thing about that, Alden.”
His face hardened.
“We’re married.”
“Not for much longer.”
He slammed his palm against the table.
“You think you can just end forty-five years because you’re angry?”
I shook my head.
“No. I’m ending forty-five years because I finally know the truth.”
He looked stunned.
I walked to the hallway closet and pulled out his old brown suitcase.
The one he used before buying that fancy duffel bag.
I set it by the door.
“Pack what you need tonight. You can arrange to collect the rest later.”
He stared at the suitcase.
Then at me.
And for the first time since I’d known him, Alden Kittle looked small.
Not weak.
Not helpless.
Just stripped of the authority he’d mistaken for love.
“Joanne,” he whispered, “you’ll regret this.”
I looked him straight in the eyes.
“No, Alden. I regret that I didn’t ask more questions in 1983.”
He packed in silence.
Twenty minutes later, his truck rumbled down the driveway.
Miriam watched from her porch.
When his taillights disappeared, she crossed the road carrying a covered dish.
“Thought you might be hungry.”
I opened the lid.
Chicken and dumplings.
I started crying.
Miriam put her arms around me.
And I told her everything.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she sat down at my kitchen table and took my hand.
“Joanne, honey, whatever comes next, you’re not facing it alone.”
I nodded.
But there was only one thing I wanted.
My daughter.
I wanted to hear her voice.
I wanted to know whether she had my eyes.
Whether she liked coffee.
Whether she had children.
Whether she had ever wondered why her mother didn’t come looking for her.
At eleven that night, my phone rang.
An unfamiliar Missouri number.
I answered so quickly I nearly dropped it.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice spoke.
“Mrs. Kittle? This is Raymond Bell. I’m the attorney who wrote the letter your husband received.”
My heart hammered.
“Yes. Yes, I’m Joanne.”
“I’m sorry to call so late, but I received your message, and given the circumstances, I thought you deserved a prompt response.”
“Please,” I whispered. “Is Rebecca alive?”
There was a pause.
“Yes, ma’am. She’s alive.”
I began crying.
“Thank God.”
“But Mrs. Kittle, there’s something I need to explain.”
I sat down.
“Go ahead.”
“Rebecca has been searching for you for years. Unfortunately, she was led to believe you had willingly surrendered her and wanted no further contact.”
My hand flew to my mouth.
“No. That’s not true.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Please tell her. Please tell her I thought she was dead.”
“I will.”
Then his voice changed.
“Mrs. Kittle, Rebecca isn’t the only person who has been trying to reach you.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“She has a daughter.”
My breath caught.
“A daughter?”
“Your granddaughter. Her name is Emily.”
I pressed my hand against my chest.
A granddaughter.
All these years, I’d thought my family was just Alden and me.
Now I had a daughter.
A granddaughter.
A whole life I’d never known existed.
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-two.”
I closed my eyes.
And then the attorney said something strange.
“Mrs. Kittle, Emily is actually the reason Rebecca began searching so urgently.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
“Because Emily found something in the inheritance documents that didn’t make sense.”
I looked down at the letter still lying on my kitchen table.
The one addressed to Alden.
The one mentioning my daughter’s inheritance.
“What did she find?”
“An old property transfer agreement. It names your husband, his mother, and a private trust established in 1983.”
I swallowed.
“What kind of trust?”
“A trust connected to Rebecca’s adoption and a substantial sum of money.”
My stomach tightened.
“How substantial?”
The attorney paused.
“More than two hundred thousand dollars, originally.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“Two hundred thousand?”
“Yes, ma’am. And there are questions about who controlled those funds.”
I looked around my farmhouse.
The peeling kitchen wallpaper.
The old refrigerator.
The ceiling stain from the roof Alden never wanted to repair.
My daddy had left me forty acres and a home.
I’d worked thirty-one years carrying mail.
I’d spent six weeks heating bathwater on the stove.
And somewhere, buried inside papers I’d never been allowed to see, was a financial arrangement involving my stolen daughter and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Mr. Bell,” I whispered, “what exactly did my husband do?”
His answer made my blood run cold.
“That’s what we’re trying to establish. But I think you need to see something before anyone confronts him again.”
“What?”
“A document bearing your signature, dated November 12, 1983.”
I froze.
That was three days after Rebecca was born.
Three days after I’d nearly died in the hospital.
“What document?”
“A consent form authorizing the adoption and certain financial arrangements.”
I stared at the kitchen wall.
“I never signed anything.”
“I was afraid you might say that.”
My voice cracked.
“Mr. Bell, I was unconscious.”
He took a slow breath.
“Then, Mrs. Kittle, we may be looking at something far more serious than a hidden adoption.”
Before I could answer, another sound came through the phone.
A woman’s voice.
Soft.
Nervous.
Asking him whether I was still there.
The attorney hesitated.
“Mrs. Kittle, Rebecca is here with me.”
My heart stopped.
“She’s… there?”
“Yes. She asked me to call you tonight. Would you like to speak with her?”
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
Then I whispered the only words I could manage.
“Please.”
I heard the phone change hands.
A quiet breath.
And then a woman spoke.
“Hello?”
I covered my mouth.
“Rebecca?”
A pause.
Then a trembling voice answered.
“Mom?”
One word.
Forty-three years.
And suddenly, every wall I’d built around my grief came crashing down.
“Baby,” I sobbed. “Oh, my sweet baby. I thought you were gone.”
She began crying too.
“I thought you didn’t want me.”
“No, sweetheart. Never. I wanted you every single day.”
We cried together.
Two strangers connected by blood and a lifetime of stolen love.
Then Rebecca whispered something that made me sit straight up.
“Mom, I need to tell you something before we meet.”
“What is it, honey?”
“Emily found an old photograph in Grandma Evelyn’s things. It’s dated 1984.”
I frowned.
“1984?”
“Yes. It shows Grandma Evelyn standing outside your farmhouse with a baby.”
I couldn’t understand.
“Rebecca, you were living with the Mercers by then.”
“I know.”
“Then whose baby was it?”
Rebecca went quiet.
And when she finally spoke, her voice shook.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Because on the back of that photograph, Grandma Evelyn wrote something.”
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
Rebecca inhaled.
“She wrote, ‘Joanne must never know there were two.'”
I stared into the darkness beyond my kitchen window.
Two.
The word echoed in my head.
Then Rebecca whispered the question that would haunt me all night.
“Mom… did anyone ever tell you that you were carrying twins?”……..
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
