Miriam Vale’s Baby
Chapter 06 - Miriam Vale’s Baby
Jenna had never heard the name Miriam Vale in her life.
That was the part that frightened her most.
Families could keep big secrets when everyone agreed to step around the silence. But Miriam’s name did not feel like a secret Jenna had missed. It felt erased.
Emmett called his legal team while Grant called police. Audrey sat on an upturned plastic crate, white wedding gown pooled around borrowed work boots. She held Miriam’s letter in one hand and her removed wedding ring in the other.
“This woman loved Nicholas?” Audrey asked.
Jenna nodded slowly. “It sounds like it.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
Audrey closed her eyes.
“Before me.”
“Yes.”
Grant was reading financial documents from the cash box. “Nicholas received fifty thousand dollars from an account tied to Miriam Vale.”
Audrey’s eyes opened.
“Investment?”
Grant looked at Jenna.
“No. Personal transfer.”
Jenna found another letter.
Elaine,
I am writing again regarding Miriam Vale. I believe my son Nicholas may have misrepresented their business partnership and taken funds while she was pregnant. Miriam has stopped answering calls. Diane insists the matter is private. I do not believe private is the same as resolved.
Pregnant.
The word changed the air.
Audrey pressed a hand to her mouth.
Emmett crouched beside the open box but did not touch Jenna.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
She answered too quickly.
He nodded.
Good, she thought. He did not tell her she should.
The next folder held hospital bill copies. A small clinic in northern Vermont. Prenatal care under Miriam Vale’s name. Then nothing.
No birth certificate.
No follow-up.
At the bottom was a sealed envelope in Diane’s handwriting.
Robert, stop digging. Miriam made her choice. Nicholas has a future. Do not ruin our son because some girl regrets her mistakes.
Jenna felt sick.
Audrey stood. “Some girl?”
Grant’s face darkened. “Audrey.”
“No. Don’t Audrey me like I’m unreasonable. This is the woman who smiled during our rehearsal dinner.”
Jenna thought of Diane’s pearls. Her smooth voice saying Jenna, enough. The way she defended Nicholas before anyone finished accusing him.
Not denial.
Not maternal blindness.
A cover-up.
The storage attendant appeared at the end of the hall. “Um. There’s a lady at the gate asking for Jenna?”
Everyone turned.
“She says her name is Elaine. She’s old. She looks mad.”
Grant looked at the lawyer letter.
“Elaine Pritchard?”
They met the woman under a buzzing security light.
Elaine Pritchard was in her late seventies, tall, thin, wrapped in a navy coat. Her white hair was braided over one shoulder. She carried a cane but looked like she might use it on a liar before using it for balance.
Her eyes found Jenna first.
“You look like Robert.”
Jenna swallowed. “You knew my father?”
“I represented him badly.”
“That’s an odd introduction.”
“I’m old. I ration politeness.”
Audrey made a sound that might have been a laugh.
Elaine looked at the boxes. “He told you about Miriam.”
“Not while he was alive.”
“No. He was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Elaine looked toward the road.
“From learning your brother may have sold his own child.”
The security light hummed.
Jenna heard Audrey whisper, “No.”
Elaine continued. “Miriam Vale gave birth to a daughter at St. Brigid’s Clinic. She planned to raise the baby. Nicholas signed papers claiming she was unstable and financially unfit. Diane supported his statement.”
Jenna’s knees weakened.
Emmett moved closer, not touching, just there.
Elaine said, “The child was placed through a private adoption network tied to one of Nicholas’s first investors.”
Audrey looked ready to be ill.
Grant asked, “Do you have proof?”
“I had proof. My office burned six weeks later.”
“Burned?”
“Electrical, they said. Convenient electricity.”
Jenna looked at her. “Why come now?”
“Because Robert sent me a letter before he died. Said if Jenna ever opened Box 42, I was to stop being a coward.”
Elaine removed a photograph.
A young woman with dark hair sat on a hospital bed holding a newborn wrapped in a yellow blanket. Her face was tired, frightened, and full of love.
“Miriam,” Elaine said.
On the back was a name.
Baby Rose Vale.
Audrey said, “Where is she now?”
“I do not know.”
Tires squealed at the storage gate.
A silver sedan stopped hard near the office.
Nicholas got out first.
Diane got out behind him.
Her pearls were gone, and in her hand was a small black lighter.
She held it beside a folded stack of papers.
“Nobody opens another box,” Diane said.
May you like
Jenna looked at her mother across the storage lot.
For the first time in her life, Diane looked afraid of her daughter.
