Chapter 7 - The Heart Condition
The ambulance arrived in under seven minutes, but it felt like hours. I knelt on the carpet beside my father, pressing my hands against his chest as the paramedics rushed in with a defibrillator.
Through the chaos, my eyes remained fixed on the gold necklace resting against his collarbone. It was a locket. The clasp had broken when he fell, and the gold shell had popped open. Inside was a tiny, faded picture of a woman.
It wasn't my mother.
The paramedics hoisted him onto the stretcher. “Are you family?” one of them shouted over the sirens.
“I’m his daughter,” I said, my voice hollow.
“Ride up front!” he yelled, pushing the stretcher toward the elevators.
I grabbed Leo’s hand, clutching the locket in my other, and followed them. Arthur Vance stood in the center of the conference room, staring after us. The smug arrogance had finally vanished from his face, replaced by a grim realization that the collateral damage of his blackmail had just escalated into a life-or-death scenario.
We arrived at Chicago Memorial Hospital. They rushed Dad into emergency surgery.
I sat in the sterile waiting room with Leo. The little boy was exhausted, resting his head on my lap, clutching his red coat. I stroked his hair, trying to process the whirlwind of the last six hours.
An hour later, the police arrived.
Two detectives walked into the waiting room. “Rebecca Harrison?”
I stood up, gently moving Leo to the chair. “Yes.”
“We’ve arrested your mother, Evelyn Harrison, at O'Hare International,” the taller detective said. “She’s being charged with attempted kidnapping, and the financial crimes unit is looking into a corporate embezzlement complaint filed by your company’s auditors.”
A wave of relief washed over me. The truth was out. I wasn't going to prison. I wasn't going to lose my son.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Your sister, Vanessa, came into the precinct voluntarily,” the detective added. “She provided a full statement corroborating the audio recordings. She’s cooperating fully.”
I nodded, sinking back into my chair. It was finally over. The immediate nightmare, the trap they had set for me, had been dismantled.
But as the detectives left, I opened my hand and looked at the gold locket again.
She’s not my daughter. And quite frankly, Richard, she’s barely yours.
I stared at the woman in the photograph. She had my eyes. She had my dark, curly hair—traits I shared with neither Dad nor Evelyn. For thirty-five years, I had believed Evelyn was my biological mother. She had always treated me with a cold, distant strictness, which I assumed was just her personality.
“Family of Richard Harrison?” a doctor called out, stepping through the double doors of the surgical wing.
I stood up. “I’m his daughter.”
The doctor pulled off his surgical cap. “He survived the bypass. It was a widow-maker, but we got to him in time. He’s awake, though very weak. He’s asking for you.”
I took a deep breath, picked up Leo, and walked into the ICU.
Dad was hooked up to a dozen monitors, pale and frail against the white sheets. When he saw me, tears welled in his eyes.
“Rebecca,” he rasped through the oxygen mask.
I stood at the foot of the bed. I didn't hold his hand. I placed the gold locket on the blanket over his chest.
“Who is she, Dad?” I asked quietly.
Dad looked at the locket, then closed his eyes. A single tear escaped, rolling down his cheek.
“Her name was Sarah,” he whispered. “She was my first wife. Your real mother.”
I felt the room tilt. “Evelyn isn't my mother?”
“Evelyn was my secretary,” Dad said, his voice laced with shame. “I had an affair with her when Sarah was pregnant with you. When Sarah found out, it broke her. She suffered a terrible postpartum depression after you were born. Evelyn used it against her. Evelyn convinced me Sarah was unfit. We threatened to have Sarah institutionalized if she didn't leave and give you to us.”
My stomach churned. “You drove my mother away? And let Evelyn raise me?”
Dad sobbed, a pathetic, broken sound. “Evelyn promised to love you like her own. But the moment Vanessa was born, Evelyn shut you out. I was a coward, Rebecca. I let her run the house, the business, my life. I’m so sorry.”
I looked at this man I had idolized, this man I had given eleven years of my life to save. He wasn't a titan of industry. He was a weak, selfish coward who had stolen my mother, stolen my inheritance, and nearly let me go to prison.
“Where is she?” I asked, my voice freezing over. “Where is my mother?”
Dad shook his head slowly. “I don't know. The last time I saw her was thirty-five years ago, at a train station in Boston. All she left behind was a box.”
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He pointed weakly toward the hospital bedside table, where the nurses had placed his personal effects. “In my wallet.”
I opened his leather wallet. Tucked behind his driver’s license was a small, tarnished silver bracelet.
