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Reborn：My Fiancé Was Training My Replacement to Steal My Mom
Novelix
Completed
"After my husband, Silas Ward, died, I lived alone for another twenty-six years. On the day of his funeral, everyone in Ashfall Creek said bad luck had had its sights on me since I was a child. Lost at eight. Married at eighteen. Widowed at forty-two. I'd always thought that was the life God had chosen for me. Then the roof started leaking. I moved the bed and found the tin box Silas had hidden underneath the bedboards. Inside were thirty-one letters from Boston, every one addressed to my childhood nickname. At the very bottom lay a faded missing-child flyer. The girl in the photograph had a chipped left front tooth and a scar below her collarbone. That girl was me. On the back, in Silas's handwriting, were these words: [If Wren finds her mother, she'll leave me. Loretta wants to go to Boston, so let her take Wren's place. As long as Wren stays, I'll love her for the rest of my life.] Loretta Hallowell had taken my place as the Vance family's daughter in Boston. She'd taken the last name, the job, and the trust fund that should have been mine. I'd married Silas young, grateful he'd wanted me when no one else in town did. It wasn't that no one wanted me. The person I trusted most had said no to everything on my behalf. When I opened my eyes again, Silas stood on the back porch, teaching Loretta stories from my childhood. In seven days, my birth mother would come to town."
Chapters (3)
第1章
After my husband, Silas Ward, died, I lived alone for another twenty-six years.
On the day of his funeral, everyone in Ashfall Creek said bad luck had had its sights on me since I was a child.
Lost at eight. Married at eighteen. Widowed at forty-two.
I'd always thought that was the life God had chosen for me.
Then the roof started leaking. I moved the bed and found the tin box Silas had hidden underneath the bedboards.
Inside were thirty-one letters from Boston, every one addressed to my childhood nickname.
At the very bottom lay a faded missing-child flyer.
The girl in the photograph had a chipped left front tooth and a scar below her collarbone.
That girl was me.
On the back, in Silas's handwriting, were these words:
[If Wren finds her mother, she'll leave me. Loretta wants to go to Boston, so let her take Wren's place. As long as Wren stays, I'll love her for the rest of my life.]
Loretta Hallowell had taken my place as the Vance family's daughter in Boston. She'd taken the last name, the job, and the trust fund that should have been mine.
I'd married Silas young, grateful he'd wanted me when no one else in town did.
It wasn't that no one wanted me.
The person I trusted most had said no to everything on my behalf.
When I opened my eyes again, Silas stood on the back porch, teaching Loretta stories from my childhood.
In seven days, my birth mother would come to town.
...
"Wren, how long have you been standing there?"
Silas pressed a hand over the notebook on the picnic table. The flicker of panic on his face vanished almost instantly.
Loretta sat across from him, still reciting. "When I was four, I crawled under Mom's covers during a thunderstorm. There were streetcars on the street outside our house in Boston…"
That notebook was mine.
So was the childhood she was reciting.
I'd been afraid I would forget where I came from, so whenever a memory surfaced, I wrote it down.
Last year, Silas had asked to borrow the notebook. He'd said he knew someone who could help find my family.
Instead, he'd taken my memories apart, line by line, and fed them to Loretta.
I walked over. "Give me my notebook."
Silas kept his hand on it. "Loretta's putting together a statement for a lawyer in Boston to help find her family. She's just using your old stories as a reference."
"She got lost when she was little, too. A Mrs. Vance in Boston wrote asking about her. This has nothing to do with you."
He was still trying to hide it from me.
In my first life, I'd believed him.
I'd even helped Loretta pack, wishing I could be as lucky as she was to finally find her family.
I grabbed the other end of the notebook. "If it has nothing to do with me, why are you making her memorize my stories?"
Silas frowned. "Wren, let it go."
I yanked the notebook free.
He snatched it back and threw it straight into the coal stove.
I lunged for it, but his hand clamped around my wrist.
"Let go!"
The pages hit the flames. Their edges blackened and curled.
I fought him with everything I had, but Silas held me behind him.
"It's a beat-up notebook. You want to burn your hands over it?"
"Those are my memories!"
"We already wrote everything down. Keeping it around will only cause trouble!"
Loretta stayed at the table, watching the flames. Under her breath, she sang, "Little bird, don't fear the thunder—Mama's there to hold you tight."
She got one word wrong.
Silas turned to correct her. "‘Mama's here,' not ‘there.'"
I'd never written that song in the notebook.
Whenever Silas couldn't sleep, I used to sit beside his bed and sing it over and over.
Now he'd given Loretta even that—a memory that had belonged to the two of us alone.
The firelight caught a glint of silver inside her collar.
I recognized the delicate chain immediately.
Two months ago, the chain on my St. Christopher medal had broken. Silas said he'd take it into town to have it repaired.
I hadn't heard anything about it since.
"Where's my medal?"
"Lost it."
Loretta shifted. Half of a St. Christopher medal slipped out of her collar.
I reached for it.
Silas stepped between us and knocked my hand away. "That's hers."
"There's a scratch on the back. I made it with a knife when I was six."
Loretta glanced down, then quickly tucked the medal back inside her shirt.
"Wren, just because you lost yours doesn't mean you can grab someone else's."
There was a smile at the corner of her mouth.
"Take it off her." I looked at Silas. "Now."
"All this fuss over half a piece of metal?"
He pulled me off the porch and lowered his voice. "Mrs. Vance will be here in seven days. Loretta's mother is trying to marry her off to a widower with two kids."
"This is her chance. Don't screw it up."
"Her chance at what?"
"It has nothing to do with you."
"She's wearing my medal and memorizing my childhood. Who exactly is she going to see?"
His expression hardened. "The school district is putting together the list for full certification. Focus on something that matters."
He pulled a wedding invitation from his coat pocket. The date was three days after Mrs. Vance was supposed to leave town.
"Everything's ready. Once she leaves, we'll get married. We'll build a good life together, so stop obsessing over what happened when you were little."
My fingers tightened around the cream-colored card.
In my first life, that was the date I'd put on a wedding dress and married him.
"Silas, what's the full name of that woman from Boston?"
His face stiffened. "She's Loretta's family. Why do you need to know?"
He took the invitation from me, folded it, and tucked it into my pocket.
"Seven days from now, wait for me at home."
I touched the card through the fabric.
He still thought that if he kept me from hearing the name Margaret Vance, I would never know I had a mother.
第2章
The next day, I went to the pharmacy.
Silas wasn't behind the counter. Loretta's voice drifted out of the treatment room.
"Be gentle. It hurts."
The curtain was open a crack.
She sat on the examination table with her collar undone. A raw red cut ran beneath her collarbone, and Silas bent over it, applying ointment.
I pulled the curtain aside. Loretta recoiled.
Silas immediately stepped in front of her. "Get out!"
"When did she get that cut?"
"It's an old scar. It's inflamed."
"An old scar that's still bleeding?"
He pulled the curtain closed and frowned. "Do you know anything about assessing wounds?"
"I asked when she got it."
"I told you. It's an old injury!"
Loretta buttoned her collar. "It's from surgery when I was little. I scratched it open just now."
"Wren, every detail in Mrs. Vance's letters fits."
I gave a cold laugh. "You haven't even met her, and you've already decided she's your mother?"
"I've waited all these years. Am I not allowed to be happy?"
"Were you waiting for a mother, or a house in Boston and a trust fund?"
Loretta's expression froze.
"I applied for three jobs and didn't get a single interview. My mother's trying to make me marry Denny Rowe. His wife's dead, and both his boys are older than my little brother."
"They said if I won't marry him, I have to move out. If you were me, would you throw away a chance like this?"
Silas pulled her behind him. "Enough!"
Loretta peered around his shoulder. "Wren, you already have a job. You have Silas. I just want somewhere to go."
I looked at him. "So you gave her my mother?"
His expression changed. "Mrs. Vance is looking for Loretta. Stop making things up."
The phone on the desk rang.
Silas answered, his voice turning gentle at once.
"Mrs. Vance. Yes, it's me."
"The scar is in the right place. It looks at least ten years old… Yes, she remembers her childhood, too. You can come get her."
He hung up right in front of me.
I stared at him. "You're really willing to call a fresh cut an old scar and vouch for her?"
"I treat wounds every day. No one knows them better than I do. She's the girl Mrs. Vance is looking for."
"Wren Hallowell, just because someone lives in Boston doesn't mean you get to decide you're her daughter."
Silas deliberately raised his voice.
"You got lost as a child. Of course hearing that someone's looking for a daughter would get your hopes up. I understand."
"But Loretta's been through enough. You can't steal her family, too!"
Loretta lowered her head. Right on cue, her eyes filled with tears.
I stared at Silas. "You know I work at the school. You know what people calling me a liar could do to me."
"Then stop making a scene."
That afternoon, Loretta brought gifts from Boston to the school.
When parents asked about them, she only sighed. "Mrs. Vance is looking for me. Wren went missing as a child, too, so I think she's having trouble accepting that I'm going to Boston with my mother."
By the time the story spread, people were saying I was jealous that Loretta had found a wealthy family and was trying to pass myself off as the woman's daughter.
Two parents went to the principal. They said they weren't comfortable leaving their children with someone suspected of identity fraud and demanded that I be removed from the classroom.
Principal Beckett studied the written complaint for a long time. Then he put the recommendation form he'd been preparing for my teaching-assistant training back in his drawer.
"Wren, I believe you. But the complaint has already reached the district, and they want the facts checked first. We'll have to hold off on the recommendation for a few days."
He paused.
"Starting tomorrow, help out in the records room. Your pay won't change. This doesn't mean you've done anything wrong."
Silas was called in to explain. Principal Beckett asked him directly, "Who exactly is the woman from Boston looking for?"
Silas glanced at me. "Loretta."
"Wren says those childhood memories are hers."
"She's been exhausted lately. She's convinced this has something to do with her. A few days away from the classroom would do her good."
He put a hand on my shoulder.
I pushed it off. "Margaret Vance is looking for me."
The color drained from his face. "Who told you her name?"
He seized my wrist and dragged me out of the office.
"You've already been taken out of the classroom. Keep this up, and you can forget that recommendation. You can forget the wedding, too!"
He knew I wasn't crazy.
He was reminding me that he could use anything against me—my mother, my job, our wedding.
If I insisted on reclaiming my mother, he would convince everyone I was the one trying to steal someone else's identity.
I looked at the face I'd known for more than a decade. For the first time, I felt as though I'd never known him at all.
He'd stolen my chance to find my mother.
Now he was using my job to keep me quiet.
第3章
On the evening of the seventh day, I went to the apartment above the pharmacy to get my copy of my birth certificate.
The door stood ajar. Silas's voice came from inside.
"If she asks how you chipped your left front tooth, what do you say?"
"I was six. I was chasing a streetcar and fell on the steps."
"No. You were fighting with a neighbor's kid over a pinwheel."
Several sheets of paper lay spread across the table. Every question was something my mother might ask when she met her daughter.
Was I afraid of thunder? Were there streetcars outside our house? What had my mother sung to put me to sleep?
Beside every question was an answer from my childhood.
Silas asked another one. "What if she asks why you didn't answer any of the thirty-one letters?"
"I'll say the Hallowells were afraid she'd take me away, so they hid them. I only found out about the letters recently."
"What if she brings up Wren?"
Loretta had no answer.
Silas was quiet for a moment.
"Tell her Wren got lost as a child, too. When she heard someone was looking for a daughter, she started confusing someone else's past with her own. Don't argue with her—just cry."
He'd even planned how to get rid of me.
I couldn't listen to another word.
I shoved the door open. Loretta scrambled to cover the papers.
Silas stayed calm. "What are you doing here?"
"Getting my birth certificate."
I pulled the pages out from under her hand.
An envelope was tucked against the last sheet. The address was unmistakable:
[c/o S. Ward — for Birdie, personal.]
I had barely read the name before Silas snatched the letter and the papers, then locked them in a drawer.
"Why do you have Mrs. Vance's letters to me?"
"She had the wrong person. These belong to Loretta."
Loretta leaned out from behind him. "Wren, she's been looking for me for years. I know this hurts because you got lost, too."
"But just because similar things happened to us doesn't mean you can claim my mother is yours."
My adoptive mother, Edith, came in carrying a stack of clothes. She stopped when she saw the medal on the table.
"Edith," I asked. "You knew?"
She avoided my eyes. "Loretta goes to Boston with her, and you stay here and marry Silas. It works out for everyone."
"But she's my mother."
"That woman wants a daughter. Loretta needs a way out. You have Silas, and you have us."
"What is there to fight over?"
To her, even my birth mother was just another thing she could hand over to Loretta.
A woman's voice sounded in the hall.
"Excuse me. Which room is Mr. Ward's?"
The room went silent.
Silas pulled the key out of the drawer's lock.
Loretta smoothed her hair and drew the half medal out over her collar.
I stood by the door, motionless.
The footsteps came closer, then stopped.
A woman in a gray coat stood in the doorway.
She was barely into her forties, but her hair was already gray at the temples.
She saw me first.
Her handbag fell to the floor.
"Birdie?"
The moment I heard that nickname in her voice, tears flooded my eyes.
She reached for me.
Before I could say "Mom," Loretta shoved past me and threw herself into her arms.
"Mom. You finally came."
The woman went rigid.
Loretta held up the half medal against her chest.
Margaret Vance touched it, and tears rolled down her face.
Silas walked past me and joined them.
"Mrs. Vance, this is Loretta."
My birth mother had called me by my name first.
But my fiancé placed another woman in front of her.
"This is your daughter."