PART 4: THE SECOND BABY THEY STOLE FROM ME
I sat frozen at my kitchen table, gripping the telephone so tightly my fingers began to ache.
“Twins?”
The word barely escaped my lips.
On the other end of the line, Rebecca was crying.
“Mom, I know this sounds impossible. But Emily found the photograph inside an old wooden box that belonged to Grandma Evelyn. There were hospital records too.”
I pressed my free hand against my chest.
“Rebecca, the doctors told me I had one baby. One little girl.”
“That’s what Dad told me you believed.”
I stopped breathing.
“Your father told you that?”
“No, Mom. Alden told my adoptive mother, Darlene, four years ago. She repeated it to me when I started asking questions.”
I stared at the dark kitchen window.
For forty-three years, I’d carried one terrible grief.
Now someone was telling me there might have been two children.
Two little girls.
Two lives stolen while I lay unconscious in a hospital bed.
“Rebecca,” I whispered, “I need to see that photograph.”
“You will, Mom. Emily and I can drive to Arkansas tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“If you’ll let us.”
I began crying again.
“Oh, sweetheart. I’ve been waiting forty-three years for you. I’d welcome you tonight if I could.”
She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
Then another voice came through the phone.
“Grandma?”
My heart nearly stopped.
“Emily?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I laughed through my tears.
“Honey, you don’t have to call me ma’am.”
“Okay, Grandma.”
Grandma.
At seventy years old, I was hearing that beautiful word for the first time.
Emily spoke gently.
“I don’t want to frighten you, but there’s something else you should know.”
I closed my eyes.
After everything I’d learned that evening, I wasn’t sure my heart could take another secret.
“What is it?”
“The photograph isn’t the only thing we found. There’s a birth certificate.”
I sat up straight.
“Whose?”
“That’s the problem. The name was changed.”
My hand trembled.
“Changed?”
“There’s an original hospital record showing two female babies delivered on November ninth, 1983. One was marked Baby A. The other was marked Baby B.”
I covered my mouth.
Two baby girls.
My babies.
“Where is Baby B?”
Emily hesitated.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Then she said something that made the room spin.
“Grandma, the paperwork shows Baby B was transferred to another hospital three days later. But the transfer authorization has your signature.”
I shook my head.
“No. No, that’s impossible.”
“We know,” Emily said quickly. “Mr. Bell thinks someone may have signed your name without permission.”
I stared at the old wooden clock above my stove.
Its hands moved steadily.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Forty-three years.
That clock had hung in my kitchen through birthdays, holidays, funerals, and lonely evenings waiting for Alden to come home.
And somewhere during all those years, two daughters might have been growing up without me.
I swallowed hard.
“Emily, can you send me a picture of those papers?”
“Right now.”
My phone vibrated.
Three photographs arrived.
The first showed Evelyn standing outside my farmhouse in 1984.
She wore the blue flowered dress I’d given her for Christmas.
In her arms was a baby wrapped in a pink blanket.
On the back, written in Evelyn’s unmistakable handwriting, were the words:
JOANNE MUST NEVER KNOW THERE WERE TWO.
I stared at those words until they blurred.
The second photograph showed a hospital document.
Two lines.
Two babies.
Both female.
Both born November 9, 1983.
And the third showed a transfer form.
At the bottom was my name.
Joanne Kittle.
Except the signature wasn’t mine.
I’d spent thirty-one years signing postal forms, delivery notices, and retirement documents.
I knew every curve of my handwriting.
Whoever had signed that paper had made the J too narrow.
The K was wrong.
And they’d used my married name without the little loop I always put beneath it.
“That’s not my signature,” I said.
“We thought so,” Emily answered.
I stared at the photograph again.
Then something caught my eye.
A handwritten notation in the lower corner.
Receiving facility: St. Agnes Children’s Home, Springfield, Missouri.
My stomach tightened.
“Emily, what’s St. Agnes?”
She paused.
“An old children’s home. It closed years ago.”
“Did you contact them?”
“The building was sold. Most of their records were transferred to a private archive.”
“Then we find that archive.”
“We’re trying, Grandma.”
I looked toward the hallway.
At the little yellow nursery I’d never had the courage to repaint.
For forty-three years, that room had remained almost untouched.
The wooden crib was gone, but the rocking chair was still there.
And inside the bottom drawer of the dresser lay the tiny pink blanket I’d planned to bring my daughter home in.
I had been told my baby died.
So I’d kept the blanket.
Now I wondered whether somewhere in this world, another woman had been wrapped in a matching one.
“Come tomorrow,” I whispered.
“We will,” Rebecca promised.
After we hung up, I sat alone for nearly an hour.
Then I did something I hadn’t done in decades.
I opened the nursery door.
The room smelled of old wood and lavender sachets.
Moonlight fell across the faded yellow wallpaper.
I walked to the dresser and opened the bottom drawer.
There was the blanket.
Soft pink yarn.
My mother’s careful stitching.
I lifted it against my face and cried until my knees gave way.
But beneath the blanket was something I’d forgotten.
A small white envelope.
My mother’s handwriting covered the front.
For Joanne, when she’s ready.
I stared at it.
My mother had died in 1996.
I’d found the envelope while sorting through her belongings, but Alden had told me it was probably an old sympathy card.
I’d put it away because I couldn’t bear to revisit those memories.
Now my hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a single page.
Dated December 3, 1983.
My dearest Joanne,
I don’t know how to tell you this, and I pray I’m mistaken. But when I visited the hospital after your surgery, I heard Evelyn arguing with a nurse near the nursery. I heard her say, “The second one goes to Springfield, just like we agreed.”
When I asked Alden what she meant, he told me I was confused.
I begged him to let me see the hospital records, but he became furious.
Something is wrong, sweetheart.
I don’t believe they’ve told you everything.
Your loving Mama.
I read the letter three times.
Then I sat on the nursery floor and pressed it to my chest.
Mama had known.
Or at least she’d suspected.
She’d tried to warn me.
And I’d spent thirty years thinking she was simply struggling with grief.
I remembered how she used to look at Alden.
How she’d grow quiet when he entered the room.
How she’d once asked whether I’d ever considered requesting my hospital records.
I’d told her no.
Alden said it would only reopen old wounds.
Now I understood.
He wasn’t protecting me from grief.
He was protecting himself from the truth.
At seven the next morning, someone knocked on my door.
I opened it expecting Miriam.
Instead, a woman in her early sixties stood on my porch.
She wore a brown coat and held an old leather purse.
Her eyes were red from crying.
“Mrs. Kittle?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Darlene Mercer.”
I froze.
The woman from the photograph.
The woman Alden had been visiting.
The woman who’d received thousands of dollars from my pension.
I gripped the doorframe.
“You’ve got some nerve coming here.”
She lowered her head.
“I know.”
“Did Alden send you?”
“No. He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Then why are you?”
She looked at me with exhausted eyes.
“Because Rebecca told me what happened last night. And because there’s something I should’ve told you four years ago.”
I folded my arms.
“Make it quick.”
Darlene opened her purse.
Inside was a thick bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon.
My name was written across every envelope.
Joanne Kittle.
I recognized my daughter’s handwriting from the photographs Rebecca had sent.
“These are Rebecca’s letters,” Darlene whispered.
My throat tightened.
“Alden told me you refused to answer them. He said they upset you.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I know that now.”
She held out the bundle.
“I kept copies because Rebecca couldn’t understand why her birth mother wanted nothing to do with her.”
I took the letters.
My hands shook.
Then Darlene reached into her purse again.
This time she removed a bank statement.
“There’s something else.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Alden told you he was sending me money because Rebecca needed help.”
I nodded.
“That’s what he said.”
Darlene shook her head.
“Rebecca never received a dollar.”
My stomach dropped.
“Then where did my money go?”
Darlene looked away.
“To me. But not for what you think.”
I felt anger rising.
“Then tell me what I should think.”
She swallowed.
“Alden was paying me to keep quiet.”
The porch seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
“About what?”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“About the second baby.”
I stepped backward.
“You knew?”
“Not everything. But enough.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid of Alden?”
She shook her head.
“Afraid of what would happen to Rebecca if the truth came out.”
I stared at her.
“What does Rebecca have to do with it?”
Darlene took a trembling breath.
“Joanne, when Rebecca was adopted, the Mercers were told her twin sister had died.”
My heart sank.
“But she didn’t?”
“No.”
I gripped the doorframe.
“Where is she?”
Darlene looked toward the gravel road.
Then back at me.
“Before I answer, you need to understand something. Evelyn didn’t arrange just one adoption. She arranged two. And she didn’t do it out of kindness.”
My voice cracked.
“What do you mean?”
Darlene pulled another document from her purse.
A faded receipt.
A handwritten amount.
$25,000.
Below it was Evelyn’s signature.
I stared at the number.
“What’s this?”
“Payment for the second baby.”
My knees weakened.
I caught the railing.
Darlene reached toward me, but I pulled away.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No mother would…”
I stopped.
Because Evelyn had never been a mother to me.
She’d been the woman who told me to stop crying.
The woman who insisted grief was weakness.
The woman who took my daughter while I lay helpless in a hospital bed.
And now I was looking at evidence that she might have accepted money for my other child.
I looked at Darlene.
“Who paid her?”
She hesitated.
“A couple from Little Rock.”
“Names.”
“Thomas and Margaret Whitcomb.”
I repeated them silently.
Thomas.
Margaret.
Whitcomb.
“Where are they now?”
“Thomas died in 2017. Margaret is still alive.”
“And my daughter?”
Darlene began crying again.
“Her name is Sarah.”
I pressed my hand against my mouth.
Sarah.
My second daughter’s name was Sarah.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
I sobbed.
“Does she know?”
Darlene nodded.
“She knows she was adopted. But she doesn’t know about you. Or Rebecca.”
I wiped my face.
“Where does she live?”
Darlene stared at me.
“That’s why I came.”
She opened her purse one final time and handed me a newspaper clipping.
A photograph showed a smiling woman standing in front of a brick elementary school.
She had dark hair.
Kind eyes.
And the same crooked smile I’d seen in my own wedding pictures.
The headline read:
LOCAL TEACHER SARAH WHITCOMB HONORED FOR THIRTY YEARS OF SERVICE.
I couldn’t stop staring.
My daughter was a teacher.
Just like my mother had been.
I traced her face with one trembling finger.
“She’s beautiful.”
Darlene nodded.
“She is.”
Then she said something that made me look up.
“Joanne, Sarah doesn’t live in Little Rock anymore.”
“Where?”
Darlene took a breath.
“She lives in Harrison.”
I stared at her.
Harrison.
Twenty-five miles from my farmhouse.
The same town where Alden’s trucking company operated.
The same town where I’d shopped for groceries, bought Christmas presents, and attended church fundraisers for decades.
My daughter had been living less than half an hour away.
“How long?”
Darlene’s voice dropped.
“Almost twenty years.”
My heart pounded.
Twenty years.
She might have stood behind me in line at the grocery store.
She might have passed me on the highway.
She might have delivered a school newsletter I’d carried on my postal route.
I looked at the newspaper clipping again.
Then I noticed the date.
October 18, 2026.
Only three weeks earlier.
I swallowed.
“Does Alden know where she lives?”
Darlene said nothing.
“Darlene?”
She slowly nodded.
My stomach turned.
“How long has he known?”
“Four years.”
I closed my eyes.
Four years.
He had known Rebecca was alive.
He had known Sarah was alive.
He had known I had two daughters.
And he’d let me keep grieving.
But the worst part was still coming.
Darlene reached into her purse and removed one last photograph.
It showed Alden standing beside Sarah outside a small restaurant.
His arm rested around her shoulders.
Both were smiling.
I stared at it.
“When was this taken?”
“Last Christmas.”
I looked up sharply.
“Last Christmas?”
Darlene nodded.
“Alden has been visiting Sarah.”
My stomach twisted.
“Why?”
“Because she thinks he’s an old family friend.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“An old family friend?”
“He told her he knew her adoptive parents. He started coming around after Thomas died. He’d bring her birthday presents. Take her to lunch.”
I gripped the photograph so hard it bent.
My husband had been visiting our daughter.
Buying her gifts.
Watching her smile.
While I sat alone at home believing she’d died forty-three years ago.
Then Darlene whispered something that made my blood run cold.
“Joanne, Sarah’s invited him to Thanksgiving dinner.”
I stared at her.
“Thanksgiving?”
“Yes.”
“That’s in a little over two weeks.”
Darlene nodded.
“And Alden told her he was bringing his wife.”
My mouth went dry.
“What wife?”
Darlene looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“He told Sarah his wife was named Darlene.”
For a moment, I couldn’t move.
Then I understood.
My husband hadn’t simply hidden two daughters.
He’d created an entirely different life.
A life where I didn’t exist.
A life where my pension paid for his secrets.
A life where another woman stood beside him while my own daughter called him a family friend.
I looked at the letters in my hands.
Then at the newspaper clipping.
Then at Darlene.
“You’re going to tell me everything,” I said quietly.
She nodded.
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to help me find Sarah.”
“I will.”
I opened the screen door.
“Then come inside.”
We sat at my kitchen table for two hours.
Darlene told me about the adoption records, the payments, the lies, and how Alden had threatened to expose her involvement if she ever contacted me.
She showed me messages he’d sent.
Bank transfers he’d made.
Photographs of meetings he’d arranged.
And when she finished, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
I called Raymond Bell.
Then I called a lawyer in Mountain Home.
Then I called Miriam.
By noon, we had a plan.
Rebecca and Emily were already driving toward Arkansas.
Sarah still knew nothing.
And Alden believed I was sitting at home crying over our marriage.
He had no idea that four women were about to compare forty-three years of secrets.
At three that afternoon, my phone rang.
Alden.
I answered.
“What do you want?”
His voice sounded almost cheerful.
“Joanne, I’ve been thinking. Maybe we both said things we shouldn’t have.”
I said nothing.
“I’ll come home tomorrow. We can put this foolishness behind us.”
I looked across the table at Darlene.
She listened silently.
“Alden,” I said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He sighed.
“Don’t be stubborn. We’ve got a marriage to save.”
I glanced at the photograph of Sarah.
Then at Rebecca’s letters.
“Funny you should mention family.”
His voice changed.
“What do you mean?”
I smiled.
“Nothing, honey. Just thinking about Thanksgiving.”
There was a long silence.
Then he asked, very carefully, “What about Thanksgiving?”
I leaned back in my chair.
“Well, I was thinking forty-five years is a long time to spend holidays without family. Maybe this year I’ll invite a few special guests.”
He stopped breathing.
“Joanne…”
“Two daughters. One granddaughter. Maybe a couple of people who’ve been waiting a long time for answers.”
The line went silent.
Then Alden whispered, “What have you done?”
I looked at Darlene.
She nodded.
And I gave him the answer I’d been waiting forty-five years to say.
“Something special, honey. Just like I promised.”
Then I hung up.
But ten minutes later, Rebecca called.
Her voice was shaking.
“Mom, we have a problem.”
My heart sank.
“What happened?”
“Emily found something else in the trust documents.”
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
“Alden didn’t just hide the adoptions.”
I closed my eyes.
“Rebecca, please…”
“He was receiving payments from the trust for years. And there’s a final document dated last month.”
I sat perfectly still.
“What document?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“A property claim.”
My eyes moved toward the window.
Toward Daddy’s forty acres.
Toward the farmhouse that had belonged to my family since 1981.
“What property?”
Her answer made my blood run cold.
“Mom, somebody filed paperwork claiming you signed away part of your farm.”
I stood so suddenly my chair scraped across the floor.
“That’s impossible.”
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Mr. Bell found the notary’s name.”
I waited.
Rebecca spoke slowly.
“It’s Alden’s sister, Lorraine.”
I stared at the wall.
Lorraine Kittle.
The woman who’d called me selfish for wanting a new washing machine.
The woman who’d told everyone I was lucky Alden kept a roof over my head.
The woman who’d spent every Christmas at my table eating food I’d cooked.
And now her name was on a document involving my land.
Rebecca’s voice trembled.
“Mom, Mr. Bell says we need to act quickly.”
“Why?”
She hesitated.
“Because the paperwork shows a closing scheduled for Friday.”
My stomach dropped.
Friday.
Tomorrow.
“What closing?”
Rebecca took a breath.
“A sale, Mom.”
I could barely speak.
“Of what?”
She answered quietly.
“Your farmhouse and forty acres.”
I looked out at the pasture.
The new fence.
Miriam’s goats.
The house Daddy had built.
The only place I’d ever truly called home.
And suddenly, I understood why Alden had been so desperate to keep control of the bank accounts.
Why he’d laughed when he waved his paycheck in my face.
Why he’d told me I couldn’t do anything without him.
He wasn’t just trying to control my money.
He was preparing to take everything.
But what Alden didn’t know was that I still had one document he hadn’t seen.
One paper Daddy had given me before he died.
And the next morning, when Alden and Lorraine arrived at the closing office expecting to walk away with my farm, they were going to discover something neither of them had ever imagined.
Because my daddy hadn’t just left me forty acres.
He’d left me proof of a promise Evelyn Kittle made in 1981, two years before my daughters were born.
And that promise was about to expose the secret that started everything……..
TO BE CONTINUED IN LAST PART…
