CHAPTER 2 — The Name She Buried
CHAPTER 2 — The Name She Buried
The woman’s fingers trembled as she turned the photo over again.
The edges were worn soft, like it had been handled too many times. But the image was unmistakable.
Her.
Younger. Smiling faintly. Holding a newborn wrapped in a hospital blanket.
A child she had no memory of raising.
Or losing.
Her throat tightened.
“Where did you get this?” she asked again, more urgently now.
The boy hugged himself, still crouched near the bread on the ground.
“The woman who raised me gave it to me,” he said. “She said if anything ever happened to her… I should find you.”
The woman blinked.
“Why me?”
The boy hesitated.
Then: “Because she said you’re my real mother.”
The words didn’t land immediately.
It took a second.
Then another.
And when they finally did, her breath completely stopped.
Behind them, the wedding guests were still watching through the glass doors, confused by the silence outside. A wedding that should’ve been starting was now frozen in something no one understood.
The waiter who had slapped the bread stepped back, suddenly uneasy.
But the woman didn’t look at him.
She only looked at the boy.
“What’s your name?” she whispered.
“Eli,” he said.
Something in her face cracked at that.
Not recognition.
Fear.
Because she had a memory now. Not of the child—but of the night he might have existed.
A hospital. Rain. A decision made under pressure. A signature she had never been fully sure she understood.
A baby she was told “did not survive long after transfer.”
But now—
May you like
Standing in front of her—
Alive.
