Chapter 2 - “DON’T CALL ME YOUR SON YET”
“You’re home,” Isabella wept into Luke’s dirty hair. “You’re finally home.”
For one second, the boy did nothing.
Then his entire body stiffened.
Not softened.
Stiffened.
“Please let go.”
The words were so quiet Isabella almost missed them.
She immediately released him.
Luke stumbled backward, clutching the torn fabric of his shirt across his shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
Isabella wiped her face.
“No. I’m sorry.”
Matthew remained kneeling beside her.
His own crescent-shaped birthmark was still visible beneath his collar.
Luke stared at it.
Then at Isabella.
Then at the wealthy donors standing at the end of the corridor.
“You think I’m your kid?”
Isabella swallowed.
“I think it is possible.”
“No.”
His face tightened.
“Miller said rich people always want something.”
“I don't want anything from you.”
Luke looked at the emerald gown.
The diamond earrings.
The ballroom beyond them.
His eyes hardened.
“Everybody wants something.”
That answer broke her heart more than if he had started crying.
Isabella stood slowly.
The security guards waited.
So did the gala director.
Twenty minutes earlier, Luke had been caught taking untouched food from a catering station.
He had not threatened anyone.
Had not hurt anyone.
He was hungry.
That was all.
Isabella turned toward her head of security.
“Mr. Bennett.”
“Yes, Mrs. Ashford?”
“Those men are not to touch him.”
Luke’s shoulders dropped slightly.
“And nobody photographs him.”
One of the gala coordinators glanced toward the archway, where several donors had already lifted phones.
Isabella’s expression changed.
“Anyone who posts an image of this child will never be invited to an Ashford Foundation event again.”
Phones lowered.
Immediately.
Luke noticed.
Power, he understood.
He just did not trust the woman holding it.
Neither did Isabella anymore.
Not after what had happened eight years earlier.
She turned back to him.
“Luke, I need to ask you something.”
He waited.
“Was Miller your legal guardian?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you go to school?”
“Sometimes.”
“Where did you sleep after he died?”
His face closed.
That answered enough.
Isabella’s chest tightened.
She wanted to scoop him up.
Feed him.
Take him home.
Put him in Matthew’s room.
Call every doctor in Chicago.
Burn down every institution that had failed him.
Instead, she forced herself to remember something uncomfortable.
Luke was not an object she had recovered.
He was a person.
And at that moment, he did not know her.
She said:
“I want to get you food.”
His eyes dropped to the plate he had nearly stolen.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“Police?”
“Not for taking food.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You promise?”
“I can promise I’m not reporting you for being hungry.”
That seemed precise enough to satisfy him.
She asked the catering staff to prepare a full meal.
Not truffle risotto.
Not oysters.
Chicken.
Potatoes.
Bread.
Soup.
Food a frightened eight-year-old could recognize.
Luke ate too quickly.
Isabella had to look away.
Matthew did not.
He sat across from him.
“You can slow down.”
Luke glared.
“I know.”
“There’s more.”
“I know.”
But his hand slid two rolls into his pockets anyway.
Matthew noticed.
Said nothing.
Good boy.
Isabella called her family attorney, Rachel Kim.
Then the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services.
Then a pediatric physician she trusted.
Not because she wanted Luke taken.
Because she refused to repeat the crime committed against him by acting as though a wealthy adult could simply declare possession.
Rachel arrived first.
Her face changed when Isabella explained the birthmark.
“A birthmark is not proof.”
“I know.”
“His story about Massachusetts isn’t proof.”
“I know.”
“You need DNA.”
“Yes.”
“And if he has been living without a legal guardian, child welfare will become involved.”
“I know.”
Rachel studied her.
“You understand you cannot take him home tonight simply because you believe he is your son.”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Luke heard.
He stopped eating.
“You’re sending me away.”
Isabella turned.
“No.”
“That lady said—”
“She said there are rules.”
His face hardened.
“Rules are how people get rid of you.”
Isabella crouched several feet away.
Not touching.
“Then I will follow every rule where you can see me.”
Luke stared.
“If you are not my son, I will still make sure you are safe tonight.”
“If you are my son…”
Her voice broke.
“…I will spend the rest of my life proving you were never supposed to disappear.”
Luke looked down.
Then whispered:
“Don’t call me your son yet.”
Isabella nodded.
“I won’t.”
That mattered.
An emergency placement was arranged through a licensed family-assistance program connected to the city.
Luke would spend the night with a vetted foster family while identity questions were resolved.
He panicked when he heard.
Isabella wanted to fight it.
Rachel stopped her.
“Do this correctly.”
So Isabella did.
Before Luke left, Matthew walked up to him.
He held out something.
A wrapped chocolate brownie from the dessert table.
Luke looked suspicious.
“For later,” Matthew said.
Luke took it.
Then Matthew pulled his collar aside again.
The matching crescent mark.
“Just so you know…”
Luke looked.
“If you are my brother, I didn’t know.”
Luke’s expression changed.
“I didn’t either.”
Then:
“What’s your name again?”
“Matthew.”
Luke nodded.
“I’m Luke.”
“I know.”
Luke almost smiled.
Then he left.
Isabella stood in the empty corridor staring after him.
Rachel came beside her.
“Do you have your original maternity records?”
“Some.”
“The death certificate?”
“Yes.”
“Burial records?”
Isabella froze.
There had been no burial.
Richard—her late husband—had told her the clinic arranged cremation because of the newborn’s condition and because Isabella was medically unstable.
She had hated it.
But she had been sedated.
Grieving.
Barely conscious.
Rachel saw her face.
“What?”
Isabella whispered:
“There was never a funeral.”
Rachel’s expression hardened.
“Then tomorrow morning we start with the death certificate.”
Matthew took his mother’s hand.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“If Luke is really him…”
He swallowed.
“…what was his name supposed to be?”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“Lucas.”
Matthew went still.
Luke.
Lucas.
The old janitor who supposedly found him had not invented much.
He had shortened what had already belonged to him.
And suddenly Isabella remembered something else.
The nurse who carried her supposedly dead baby away had whispered:
“Goodbye, little Lucas.”
Nobody outside the delivery room should have known the name.
Isabella opened her eyes.
“Rachel.”
“What?”
“I want every record from that clinic preserved tonight.”
Rachel was already reaching for her phone.
May you like
Because somewhere in Boston, an eight-year-old lie had just started breathing again.
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