Chapter 3 - THE SONG IN THE RAIN
Alexander did not dismiss Grace. He did not call the police, and he did not allow his father to remove Noah from the study. Instead, he asked Mrs. Bell to bring tea, sandwiches, and the personnel file from the staffing agency. It was the first time in years that the Sterling household had been forced to wait while a truth unfolded at its own pace.
Grace sat on the edge of a chair with Noah leaning against her side. She kept her hands folded in her lap because every instinct told her to reach for him. She was afraid that if she became too familiar, someone would accuse her of taking advantage of a child who had already suffered enough.
Alexander opened the staff file. Grace's employment history was ordinary: a hotel housekeeping position, a temporary job at a private residence, several months working for an elderly couple outside Albany. Nothing suggested fraud. The agency had verified her identity and references. But the file did not explain why she had applied to the Sterling mansion after receiving an anonymous letter.
“May I see it?” Alexander asked.
Grace reached into the pocket of her uniform and took out a folded sheet of paper. The ink had faded slightly from being handled too often.
The letter contained only a few lines.
If you still remember the baby you were told you lost, ask what happened at St. Agnes on the night of October 14. A child survived. The record was changed. Look for the Sterling family.
There was no signature.
Alexander read it twice. “Why didn't you come directly to me?”
“Because I didn't know whether you had been told I was dead, whether you believed I had abandoned the baby, or whether you had helped make it happen.” Grace's voice trembled. “I had spent six years trying to survive the grief. I couldn't risk being turned away from your front door by people who knew more than I did.”
“I was told you died.”
Grace's eyes widened. “You were?”
“My father said there had been complications. He told me the hospital could not save you. I never saw a body. He said the family had arranged a private burial because the hospital needed time to complete its records.”
Grace pressed a hand over her mouth. For a moment, she could not speak.
They had been given the same lie from opposite sides. One told her the baby had died. The other told him the mother had died. A single child had been used to keep two people separated.
Noah tugged at Grace's sleeve. “Do you know the song?”
“What song, sweetheart?”
“The one in my dream.”
Grace's heart stopped.
She had sung a lullaby while pregnant, one her own mother had taught her when she was little. It was not a popular song. It had no recorded version, no familiar melody that someone could recognize from the radio. She had hummed it to the baby while she waited for the birth, imagining the small life that would change everything.
“Can you tell me how it goes?” she asked.
Noah frowned in concentration. He hummed three soft notes, then a fourth that rose and fell like a sigh.
Grace began to cry again.
It was the lullaby.
She joined him, barely above a whisper, completing the melody and singing the line her mother had made up for her: “When the moon is far away, love will find you where you stay.”
Noah's face transformed. He leaned forward, eyes wide.
“That!” he whispered. “That's the song!”
He climbed into Grace's lap and pressed his cheek against her chest. She wrapped her arms around him, and for the first time since she had been told her child was dead, the ache in her heart became something other than grief. It was hope, frightening and enormous.
Alexander watched them. He wanted to believe. He also knew that wanting something did not make it true. He had built an empire by demanding proof, and now proof was the only thing that could keep his heart from making another mistake.
“I want a DNA test,” he said. “Privately. Immediately.”
Grace nodded. “I want that too.”
Noah looked between them. “Will it tell you if she's my mom?”
“Yes,” Alexander said, kneeling beside them. “It can help us know the truth.”
“Then do it fast.”
A knock interrupted them. Richard entered without waiting for permission.
“This has gone far enough,” he announced. “The guests are asking questions. The candidates are offended. The staff are talking. We need to restore order.”
Alexander rose. “The order you want is the one where no one asks what happened six years ago.”
Richard's jaw tightened. “You are making accusations without evidence.”
“Then you'll have no problem cooperating with an investigation.”
Richard looked at Grace. “This woman has entered our home under false pretenses.”
“I came under my real name,” Grace said quietly. “I did not steal anything. I did not lie about my references. I applied for a job because I needed to earn a living and because I wanted to learn whether my child was alive.”
“You have no proof that the boy is yours.”
“No,” she said. “But I have a right to ask.”
Richard's face hardened. “You have no right to disrupt this family.”
Alexander stepped between them. “She is not leaving until we know the truth.”
Richard's eyes moved to Noah. “And what about him? Are you going to let a stranger convince a six-year-old that she is his mother?”
Noah slipped down from Grace's lap and stood beside her.
“She isn't a stranger,” he said.
Richard's expression flickered. It was only a moment, but Alexander saw it: not confusion, not surprise, but fear.
Richard recovered quickly. “Children become attached to anyone who gives them attention. This is precisely why we need a proper mother figure, not an employee who has decided to turn a private family matter into a performance.”
“Enough,” Alexander said.
He ordered Richard to leave the study. For the first time in Alexander's adult life, his father looked genuinely shocked at being told no.
After Richard left, Alexander called a private physician and arranged for a certified lab to collect samples. He also contacted the hospital's records office and requested the original files from the night Noah was born.
Grace sat quietly while the arrangements were made. She had imagined this moment in a hundred different ways, but never with the child she had lost holding her hand and the man she had loved standing nearby, looking at her as if the world had shifted beneath his feet.
As evening approached, Noah grew tired. He curled on the sofa beside Grace while she hummed the lullaby again. Alexander watched from his desk, unable to work.
He had spent six years believing his son's dreams were fragments of a dead woman's memory.
Now he wondered whether they had been fragments of a mother who had never stopped searching for him.
Outside the study, Richard called someone and spoke in a low, urgent voice.
“The girl is here,” he said. “And Alexander has ordered the records.”
He listened, then added, “No. We cannot let the test happen without knowing what the hospital still has.”
When he ended the call, he stared down the corridor toward the room where Noah slept.
After Richard left the study, Alexander asked Mrs. Bell to stay nearby. He did not want Grace to feel isolated, and he did not want Noah to believe that adults were whispering behind closed doors because he had done something wrong. Mrs. Bell brought a blanket and a bowl of sliced pears, then sat quietly in a chair near the window.
Grace asked Noah about his dreams. He described a room with rain on the glass, a warm hand on his forehead, and a voice that always stopped singing just before the last note. He said he had tried to hum the melody to his father, but Alexander had never recognized it. Grace listened without interrupting, afraid that even a well-meant question might turn the child's memories into something he felt he had to perform.
When Noah finished, she told him that memories did not always arrive as pictures. Sometimes they were a sound, a smell, or a feeling that stayed in the body long after the mind forgot the details. She did not claim that every dream was a message from the past. She only told him that it was all right to be curious about the things he felt.
Alexander heard her explanation and understood why Noah had trusted her. She did not use his confusion to make herself important. She gave him room to be uncertain. For a man who had spent his life trying to solve every problem quickly, that kind of patience was unfamiliar—and necessary.
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Later, after the lab technician left, Alexander asked Grace whether she wanted a lawyer of her own. She looked surprised. He explained that she should not have to rely on his attorney, even if Daniel was acting fairly. Grace accepted the offer. It was a small step, but it showed that Alexander was beginning to understand the difference between protecting her and controlling the situation for her.
For the first time, the secret he had buried was no longer safely in the past.
