Chapter 2

A few hours later, everyone was planning their new rich lives like they'd won the lottery.

I lay on my twin bed, listening to Earl and Daryl next door discussing "investment strategies" like they actually knew what they were talking about. I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I kept thinking about Grandma's smile today and that terrible day two months ago.

I'd always thought I understood this family's history, but now I realized there were so many things I'd never really questioned. Why was Grandma so different from everyone else? Why did she never fight back? Why did she always accept everything, even the worst treatment?

I quietly got out of bed and walked to that squeaky floorboard. I could hear Earl's snoring from next door, but there was still light coming from the living room. Peeking through my door crack, I saw Grandma sitting at the kitchen table, wide awake, like she was waiting for something.

She was looking out the window, but her expression was completely focused. This wasn't the tired, defeated woman I'd always known. This was... someone else.

I tiptoed out of my room. "Grandma? Are you okay?"

She looked at me without any surprise. "I figured you'd come out here. You always were too smart for your own good."

I sat in the chair across from her. "That phone call today... you weren't surprised, were you?"

"No, sweetheart. I wasn't."

"You already knew."

"I've known for two months."

My heart started beating faster. This felt like one of those moments when you know everything's about to change forever.

"Tell me the truth. All of it."

She studied my face for a long moment. "Are you sure you want to know? Because once I tell you, you can't unknow it. And what I'm planning..."

"I want to know."

Something shifted in her expression then, like she was deciding whether to trust me with something huge. She sighed, suddenly looking every one of her fifty-five years.

"When I was young, about your age, I started wondering why I was so different from them. Earl's family... they don't know how to love. They only know how to take."

I thought about all those times I'd seen Earl yell at her, seen Daryl treat her like a servant, seen Brandi act like she was invisible unless she needed something.

"I started asking questions. Why didn't I look like anyone? Why was my blood type so rare? Why did they act like I was causing trouble when I got sick?"

She paused, hands folded on the table.

"But every time I asked questions, Earl would get... angry. He would remind me that I had nowhere else to go, that nobody else would want me. He made me believe I was lucky they kept me."

"That's horrible."

"I thought it was normal, Sage. I thought all women lived like this. Serve their husbands, have babies, never complain."

The way she said it made me realize there was so much more to her story. I took a deep breath before asking the question that had been bothering me.

"Grandma, before my mom... did she have sisters?"

Grandma's face grew very sad. "Three sisters. Your mother had three older sisters."

Three sisters? I'd never heard about them.

"What happened to them?"

"Earl... he wanted sons. Every time I had a daughter, he said we couldn't afford to feed another 'useless mouth.'"

My blood went cold. "What do you mean?"

"He took them away, Sage. Three beautiful baby girls. He said they'd find better homes, but..."

Her voice broke.

"I never saw them again. I don't even know if they survived."

I felt like I was going to be sick. Earl killed those babies? Or gave them away? My mom had three sisters she never knew about, who never got to live?

"Your mother only survived because when she was born, Earl was in jail for a few days. Drunk driving. By the time he got out, I'd hidden her with neighbors, told everyone she was a neighbor's baby I was watching. When he saw her months later, she was too old, too established. He couldn't make her disappear without people asking questions."

"Oh my God, Grandma."

"But even then, he made me pay for keeping her. Every day. More work, more abuse, more reminders that I was a burden."

I could barely process what she was telling me, but I needed to know everything. The pieces were starting to fit together in the most horrible way.

"Tell me about two months ago. The truth."

Grandma's hands started shaking slightly.

"That day, when Brayden fell... I was already very sick. I'd been feeling weak for months, but I couldn't say anything because Earl would call me lazy."

I remembered. She'd looked terrible then, but every time I mentioned seeing a doctor, Earl would explode.

"When we got to the hospital and they said Brayden needed blood... Daryl and Brandi didn't hesitate. 'Use hers,' Daryl said. 'She's tough. She can handle it.'"

"But you were already sick."

"I was dying, Sage. I knew I was dying. But I also knew that if I refused, if I let Brayden suffer... they would never forgive me. They'd make my life even worse, if that was possible."

She looked toward the kitchen window, into the darkness.

"So I let them take my blood. Almost all of it. I remember lying on that hospital bed, watching my blood flow into those tubes, thinking 'This is how I die. After fifty-five years of giving everything, I die giving my actual blood to save the only family member they actually care about.'"

Her words painted a picture so horrible I wanted to cover my ears, but I forced myself to listen.

"When I collapsed, they were so focused on Brayden, nobody noticed me for hours. When a nurse finally checked on me, my blood pressure was dangerously low. My body was shutting down."

I remembered that terrible night. Earl and Daryl kept pacing the hospital waiting room, but not because they were worried about Grandma. They just wanted to know when Brayden would be okay.

"The doctor said I needed emergency treatment, but..."

"But they said no."

"Daryl said, 'She'll be fine. She's tough.' And Brandi said, 'We can't afford two hospital bills.'"

My fists clenched. "They left you there."

"They took Brayden home and left me in the medical wing. No payment authorization, no family contact information. The hospital finally had to discharge me, but I was too weak to walk home."

"So where did you go?"

"I crawled." She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. "I crawled from the hospital toward the highway, thinking maybe I could hitchhike, or... or maybe I would just die on the road."

The image of my grandmother, sick and bleeding, crawling along a highway... I couldn't even process it.

"But that's when they found me."

"They?"

"The people from the Ravenscroft family's search team. They'd been monitoring hospital records in the region for years, looking for anyone with my rare blood type who might be their missing daughter. When I was admitted that day, my blood work flagged in their system."

I stared at her, trying to wrap my head around this twist of fate. After all those years of suffering, she was rescued at her lowest moment.

"They found you on the highway?"

"A black car pulled over. I thought I was hallucinating. This well-dressed man got out, very gentle, very kind. He said, 'Ms. Ravenscroft? We've been looking for you.'"

Ms. Ravenscroft. Not Mrs. Johnson. Not 'hey you' or 'old woman.' They called her by her real name.

"He took me to a private clinic. Real doctors, real medical care. For the first time in my life, people treated my pain like it mattered."

"What did they tell you?"

"Everything. About the hospital mix-up in 1969. About how Harrison and Victoria Ravenscroft had been searching for me for decades. About how they never stopped believing I was alive, never stopped hoping they'd find me."

Her eyes filled with tears, but not sad tears. Something else.

"For fifty-five years, I believed I was worthless. I believed nobody would ever love me, nobody would ever choose me. I thought I deserved the life I had."

"But you didn't."

"No, sweetheart. I didn't. I was supposed to be loved. I was supposed to be protected. I was supposed to have choices."

Now came the question that had been burning in my mind since she started talking.

"So why did you come back here? Why didn't you stay with your real family?"

Grandma's expression changed. That dangerous smile came back.

"Because I had unfinished business."

Unfinished business. The way she said it made my skin crawl.

"What kind of business?"

"Sage, for fifty-five years, these people took everything from me. My youth, my health, my children, my dignity. They made me believe I was nothing."

She stood up, and I saw something in her posture I'd never seen before. Confidence.

"Now I know who I really am. I know what I'm worth. I know what I deserve."

"And what do you deserve?"

"Justice."

That word hung in the air between us like a loaded gun. I needed to understand exactly what had pushed her to this point.

"Grandma, that day at the hospital... when you collapsed... did Brayden see it?"

"Oh yes. He saw everything."

I thought about that moment. Brayden lying in his hospital bed, IV in his arm, fresh blood—Grandma's blood—flowing into his body. And when the nurse ran over to check on Grandma...

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'Is she gonna be okay? Because I might need more blood later.'"