Chapter 7
The notebook did not end with me.
That was worse.
Twenty-one children over four decades had private placement notes.
Some ordinary.
Some not.
Wealthy families quietly sending away infants, nieces, nephews, children born outside approved relationships.
St. Catherine’s had sometimes protected them.
Sometimes obeyed the people paying its bills.
Complicated history.
No saints.
No monsters only.
Martha sat beside Eli while I read.
Then she said something.
“Father Mercer knew.”
I looked at her.
The man whose name I carried.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Everything by the end.”
My chest tightened.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Martha’s eyes filled.
“Because Margaret asked him not to until you were grown enough to choose what to do with it.”
“I was grown.”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“Then Vincent threatened the home.”
There.
Money.
Again.
The Vale family was one of St. Catherine’s largest donors.
If Thomas Mercer exposed what happened, funding disappeared.
Children paid the price.
He chose silence.
Wrong?
Maybe.
Understandable?
Also maybe.
I hated both possibilities.
After Vincent died, Thomas planned to tell me.
Then he had his stroke.
Died six weeks later.
The notebook vanished behind the pantry wall.
Hidden by Martha?
No.
Father Mercer himself.
He gave her one instruction:
If Gabriel ever begins supporting this place directly, let the building tell him when the old donors can no longer control the children.
That sounded like him.
Cryptic old bastard.
I almost smiled.
Then I looked at Gideon.
“What did Serena want with the notebook?”
His face hardened.
“To protect the gala.”
“No.”
I closed the book.
“Try again.”
He sighed.
Serena had discovered the notebook three years earlier while planning renovation proposals.
She found my entry.
Understood the blood connection.
Then found something else.
A letter tucked into the final pages.
From Margaret Vale.
My mother.
Addressed to me.
Serena removed it.
My body went cold.
“Where is it?”
Gideon looked toward the entrance.
“She has it.”
Three years.
Serena had carried a letter from my dead mother while sleeping beside me.
While planning our wedding.
While listening to me say I remembered nothing about where I came from.
The betrayal became too quiet for anger.
Then Eli whispered:
“She burned one paper.”
I turned.
“What?”
He had seen Serena in the pantry yesterday.
Holding a cream envelope.
She burned it over the kitchen sink.
Not the notebook.
A copy?
The original?
I did not know.
But now I understood why St. Catherine’s had to close immediately.
May you like
The children were not merely in the way.
They had become witnesses.
