Chapter 4 - The Stolen Life
Maya stared at her grandmother, the room spinning around her.
“His... his husband?” Maya stammered, dropping to her knees in front of the rocking chair, pulling her grandmother’s trembling hands away from her face. “What are you talking about? Grant Alden is married to Evelyn Alden! They’ve been married for twenty years!”
“No,” Helen sobbed, shaking her head wildly. “No! It was all a lie! All of it!”
Helen reached out with a trembling hand, grabbing the old leather-bound photo album from the side table. She flipped open the yellowed pages toward the very back, where a hidden paper envelope was tucked behind a picture of a young girl with dark curls.
Helen pulled out a folded, faded document and handed it to Maya.
Maya’s fingers shook as she unfolded the heavy paper.
It was an official marriage certificate from Beaufort County, dated twenty years ago.
Grant Arthur Alden and Sarah Elizabeth Reed.
Maya stared at her mother’s signature, written in delicate, sloping cursive.
“Your mother, Sarah, met Grant when he was just starting his first shipping logistics firm,” Helen whispered, wiping tears from her wrinkled cheeks. “He didn't have billions back then. He was ambitious, charming, and desperate to build an empire. They fell in love. They got married quietly in a small chapel in Beaufort. Sarah was twenty-two years old.”
“If they were married...” Maya gasped, her mind racing, “then why does the world think he married Evelyn?”
“Because Evelyn’s father was Thomas Vance,” Helen spat, her voice suddenly laced with an old, poisonous hatred. “Thomas Vance owned the largest port terminal authority in the Southeast. Grant realized that if he married Thomas Vance’s daughter, he would instantly gain access to hundreds of millions of dollars in capital, shipping contracts, and political power.”
Maya’s breath caught in her throat. “So what did he do to my mother?”
“Sarah got pregnant with you,” Helen said, tears streaming down her face. “She was so happy. She thought they were going to build a family. But three months into her pregnancy, Grant came home and told her that their marriage was a mistake. He told her he had met Evelyn Vance. He offered Sarah a check for five hundred thousand dollars to sign divorce papers and walk away quietly.”
Maya felt a deep, cold disgust blossoming in her chest. “Did she take it?”
“Of course she didn't!” Helen cried out fiercely. “Your mother loved him! She threw the check in his face and threatened to go to the newspapers, to ruin his reputation before his deal with the Vance family could be sealed!”
Helen gripped Maya’s hands tightly.
“Two weeks later, Sarah was driving home from her prenatal checkup on a country road near Walterboro. A heavy log truck forced her car off the road into a ravine. She survived long enough to reach the hospital, long enough for the doctors to perform an emergency C-section to save you... but your mother died on that operating table, Maya.”
Maya stared at the marriage certificate in her hands, her heart shattering into a thousand pieces.
“The police called it an accident,” Helen whispered, her voice falling into a terrified hush. “A hit-and-run by an unknown truck. But two days after Sarah died, Grant Alden showed up at my front door. He didn't come to mourn. He came with two lawyers and a man carrying an envelope filled with cash.”
“What did he say?” Maya choked out.
“He told me that if I ever told a single living soul about his marriage to Sarah—if I ever tried to claim you as his daughter—he would make sure I lost everything. He said he would use his power to take you away from me, put you in an orphanage, and make sure I ended up in prison.”
Helen squeezed Maya’s fingers until it hurt.
“I was an old woman with no money, Maya! I had just lost my only daughter! I was terrified he would destroy you, too! So I took you, I moved us here, I changed your birth certificate details, and I swore to keep you hidden from the world until my dying day.”
Maya looked down at the marriage certificate in her lap.
May you like
An eighteen-year lie. A stolen mother. A stolen life.
And across the harbor, living in a palace of gold and glass, was Grant Alden, his new wife, and the daughter who had taken Maya’s place in the sun.
