Chapter 105 #23: Lucy Is Short For Lucia
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David
The townhouse door closes behind him with a soft click that feels louder than it should. David stands in the foyer for a moment, the silence pressing in from all sides. His pulse is still elevated from the fight in Nora's porch, from the way she stepped in front of him without hesitation. She put herself between him and a loaded barrel to protect him. The memory is lodged somewhere deep into his brain, so far in that he couldn't uproot it even if he wanted to. And he definitely does not want to.
No one does that for someone they're not still in love with.
“She’s married,” David mutters to the empty room, as if that is a spell that should make everything fall back into place.
It doesn’t.
He moves through the house on autopilot, flipping on lights he doesn’t need. The place hasn’t changed much since she left. Same dark wood, same leather furniture, same photographs he never took down. He walks past the one of them on the beach in Santorini, her hair wild in the wind, his arm around her waist. He doesn’t stop to look at it though.
There’s an envelope on the floor just inside the front door. Plain manila with no return address, and his name typed on the front. The PI must have slipped it under while he was out. He picks it up, feels the weight of it, and carries it to the study.
He sits at the desk, the same one he used to work at late into the night when she was asleep upstairs. The lamp throws a circle of light across the surface and he opens the envelope.
Photos spill out first. Grainy black-and-whites, then colour prints. Nora leaving a clinic five years ago, her face pale, hand pressed to her stomach. Nora at another appointment a month later, visibly pregnant now, coat open because she couldn’t button it. Nora at a private OB-GYN office three weeks after that, ultrasound folder tucked under her arm. The dates are stamped on the backs. Every single one falls just after the divorce papers hit his desk.
He sets the photos aside and pulls out the next stack. Medical records. Photocopies of discharge summaries, lab results, handwritten notes. One line jumps out: positive hCG, confirmed two weeks post-divorce. Another: fetal heartbeat detected at eight weeks. The doctor’s name is familiar – Patel. The same one who told them the chances of another pregnancy were almost zero after the trauma.
He leans back in the chair, the leather creaking under his weight. His mind goes to the birthmark he saw the other day – that small crescent moon behind Lucy’s left ear. The very same one he has.
He opens his eyes and looks at the last document. Lucy’s birth certificate. The date has been altered. Someone used white-out on the original issuance, then typed over it. The new date is three months later than the medical records suggest. The child’s name is Lucia Calder.
Lucy is short for Lucia.
The realisation is overwhelming as he sits there for a long time, staring at the page. The room is quiet except for the faint tick of the clock on the wall. His thumb traces the altered date. Three months. Just enough time to make the timeline fit Vincent. Just enough to hide the truth.
She was already pregnant when she left him.
The realization settles in his chest like lead. She knew. She had to have known. And she walked away anyway, took his child and gave her to him.
He angrily pushes the papers away and stands. His hands are shaking now as he walks to the window and looks out at the dark street. The city is alive below, lights flickering, cars moving, people going about their nights like nothing is wrong. Like his entire world hasn’t just tilted on its axis.
He thinks about the hospital. The way Nora stepped in front of him tonight. The way she looked at him in the elevator when she thought he wasn’t watching. The way she whispered against his shirt that she couldn’t lose Lucy. Not again.
Again.
He goes back to the desk and picks up the birth certificate, looking at the name one more time. Lucia Calder. Lucia probably having been named after Lucian. He folds the paper carefully and slips it into his inside jacket pocket.
There’s only one way to know for sure.
He grabs his coat and keys. The park where Nora takes Lucy on weekends is fifteen minutes away. He’s watched them there twice already. Once from across the street, once from a bench half-hidden by trees. He knows the routine. Saturday mornings, nine-thirty, same bench near the swings. Lucy runs straight for the slide. Nora sits with coffee, eyes never leaving her daughter.
He drives fast, windows down, cold air cutting through the car. His mind is quiet now. The anger is still there, but it’s cold and controlled. He parks two blocks away and walks the rest. The park is empty at this hour, streetlights throwing long shadows across the grass. He finds the bench he used last time and sits, collar up, cap low.
He waits.
At nine-twenty-five, they arrive. Nora pushes Lucy in the stroller, talking softly to her. Lucy points at the swings excitedly. Nora smiles, the same smile she used to give him when they were happy. The woman he loved with all his heart hid his child from him and gave her to another man. The thought hurts more than any bullet hole ever did.
They settle on the bench. Lucy climbs out and runs for the slide. Nora watches her, coffee in hand, shoulders relaxed for the first time in days.
He moves.
He stays in the shadows, circling wide, keeping the play structure between them. Lucy climbs the ladder, laughing. She reaches the top, turns, and slides down fast. Nora claps. Lucy runs back to climb again.
He waits until she’s at the top of the ladder again. She pauses, looking around. Her coat is unzipped with the hood down, and a single dark curl falls across her shoulder.
He steps closer. Close enough to see the birthmark again. She turns her head, looking for her mother, and that’s when he makes his move.
His hand brushes the back of her coat quickly, and he plucks a single hair from the hood lining, then slips it into the small plastic vial he brought, seals it, and steps back into the shadows before she notices.
Lucy slides down again, laughing. Nora calls her over for a drink of water.
David stays hidden, watching them for a while longer. Nora kneels, wipes Lucy’s face with a tissue, then kisses her forehead. The sight of it twists something inside him.
She’s his.
The hair in his pocket is proof. The dates are proof. The birthmark is proof. But he just needs the final piece to get an irrefutable answer.
And then... then he’ll take his child back.