Tears streamed down her face.
“How did you find us?”
“Your daughter sold me oranges,” I said. “And asked why I had your picture.”
She covered her mouth.
“I was going to tell you,” she whispered. “That night. I was pregnant.”
The world narrowed.
“What?”
“Your mother came to see me,” she said.
My chest tightened. “Victoria?”
Elena nodded. “She brought two men who pretended to be police. She said I was ruining your future. She put cash on the table. A bus ticket. She told me to disappear.”
“And if you didn’t?”
“She said she’d accuse me of theft. That nobody would believe a poor girl over a Carter.”
I felt sick.
“She answered your phone when I tried to call,” Elena said. “She told me you didn’t want a baby. That you laughed.”
“I never knew,” I said hoarsely. “I looked for you. She told me you left with someone else.”
We stared at each other, ten stolen years between us.
Isabella clung to her mother.
“She’s mine, isn’t she?” I asked quietly.
Elena nodded.
I stood.
“You’re not staying here another night.”
“We don’t have anywhere—”
“You do now.”
I carried Elena down the stairs. Isabella packed a single backpack.
At the hospital, the best doctors in Los Angeles took over. Pneumonia. Severe anemia. But treatable.