⸻
“Then explain it,” I said. “All of it.”
⸻
“Both boys were born healthy,” Renata said. “Milo first, then Silas about eleven minutes later. There were complications with your own recovery, significant enough that you were sedated for almost two full days. Foster came to me the night after the delivery and asked me to help him.”
⸻
“Help him do what?” I asked, though some sick, dawning part of me already understood.
⸻
“He told me he couldn’t afford to raise two children on his salary,” Renata said. “He told me he’d always wanted, secretly, to start a life somewhere else eventually, and that Silas could be the beginning of that, if I was willing to raise him as my own instead of putting him up for adoption through official channels.”
⸻
“And you agreed,” I said. “To falsify records. To let me believe my own son died.”
⸻
“I falsified the death certificate,” Renata admitted, her voice barely audible now. “I had access, and Foster made promises about supporting us financially that I was, to my everlasting regret, willing to believe at the time. I want you to understand I’ve spent eight years telling myself a story where this was somehow a kindness instead of exactly what it actually was.”
