“She won’t find out,” she said sharply. “Not unless someone tells her. And you’re not stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds you, are you, Cousin?”
Back in college, when I lost both my parents in a car accident, it was Aunt Hannah who stepped in and paid my tuition. She made sure I graduated from med school.
But that generosity came at a price.
Aunt Hannah wasn’t a saint. She used to be the mistress of a powerful businessman, hoping to lock down her place in the elite by giving him a son. But life played a cruel joke on her: she gave birth to Alison—intersex, sterile and entirely useless to her dreams of marrying up.
So, she took the hush money, raised Alison alone and never gave up on the fantasy of trading her daughter for a shot at high society.
When I became a doctor—an OBGYN, no less—she saw her chance.
She wanted me to operate. Clear the canal. Stitch on a fake hymen. Make Alison look like a blushing virgin so some rich man would never know the difference. And since post-op care would be an ongoing thing—hormones, maintenance, therapy—I’d be the perfect built-in solution.
But she didn’t know was that her daughter’s been actively destroying herself.