She dreamed of the Fairmonts discovering their relationship and dragging him home, locking him away. Jasper jumping from the fourth floor, shattering his leg, forcing his parents to relent.
And then she dreamed of Grandma Nora. The tiny old woman took her hand and said, Sweetheart, all I want is for you to be happy.
A shrill ringtone dragged her back.
An IV drip was taped to the back of her hand. Jasper was gone. A note on the nightstand said something had come up at the office.
She might have believed it, if not for the photo that had just arrived from an unknown number on her phone. A photo of a kiss.
When she answered the call, the other end stayed silent for a long time. Just as her patience was about to snap, a man's hoarse voice broke through.
"Is this Hilda Summers?"
His voice trembled, the words tumbling over each other.
"Hilda, hello. I saw your file at the doctor's office. I'm sorry for the intrusion, but there's something I need to confirm."
"Would you be willing to come in and take a paternity test with me?"
Even the expedited results would take at least two days.
The middle-aged man carried himself with an unmistakable air of wealth, yet he stood off to the side, fidgeting, opening his mouth and closing it again. Finally, all he managed was her name. "Hilda," he said, eyes rimming red. "That's a beautiful name."
With shaking hands, he reached into his breast pocket and produced a photograph. In it was a child, five or six years old.
He said the child had been wearing a small gold locket engraved with the family name when she went missing.
Hilda stared at the photograph for a long time, her thoughts tangling into knots.
Of course she'd seen that locket.
Grandma Nora had treasured it. It had paid for nearly half her schooling.
"This is insane," Hilda told her friend. "It feels like the first twenty-some years of my life were a lie, and now everything's been turned upside down."
They were sitting at a banquet. Hilda had tagged along on her friend's business trip, planning to check into a hospital to recover before dealing with everything else.
Her friend suggested, "Why don't you just ask your grandma what's going on?"
Hilda's hands went still.
Some things, once spoken aloud, had to be remembered all over again. And every time they were remembered, the grief came flooding back. Her fists clenched until her nails bit into her palms. She couldn't speak.