I looked at my father.
“Why?”
He didn’t answer.
I screamed:
“WHY?”
He finally looked at me.
And said:
“Because I wanted a family that could never leave me.”
That sentence broke something inside me.
My father hadn’t wanted money.
He hadn’t wanted power.
He had wanted ownership.
Of children.
Of identities.
Of blood.
Of memories.
He had rewritten our lives because he couldn’t accept losing control.
Then police entered the room.
Daniel had recorded everything.
Rosalyn had been working with him.
Trevor had been working with them.
Everyone had been lying.
But not everyone had been lying for the same reason.
My father was arrested.
The clinic was shut down.
The hidden records were seized.
The truth came out slowly.
Painfully.
There had never been one secret.
There had been dozens.
My mother had known.
My father had manipulated the records.
Daniel had helped hide evidence.
