Maybe your little girl would like him.’ Marcus felt something crack open in his chest, a place he’d kept carefully sealed since his divorce three years ago. This wasn’t just about medicine or money. This was about a child willing to sacrifice everything she loved for the chance to save her mother.
«‘Emma,’ he said carefully, «‘I’d like to help you and your mama, but first I need you to tell me where you live.’ The little girl’s face clouded with uncertainty. Mama had always warned her about strangers, especially strange men. But there was something in this man’s eyes, a sadness that matched her own, a sincerity that her seven-year-old intuition recognized as genuine.
As Emma began to share her address, neither she nor Marcus could have imagined that this moment would unravel a twenty-year-old secret that would change both their lives forever. Marcus stared at the crumpled piece of paper in his hand, his heart pounding as he read the address Emma had carefully written in crayon. 1247 Maple Street.
Apartment 3B. The numbers swam before his eyes as memories he’d buried for twenty years came flooding back. Maple Street.
He knew that street. «‘Emma, sweetheart,’ he said, his voice oddly strained. «‘What’s your mama’s full name?’ «‘Maria Rodriguez,’ Emma replied proudly.
«‘She’s the best mama in the whole world. She cleans offices at night so she can take care of me during the day, but now she’s too sick to work. Maria Rodriguez.’ The name hit Marcus like lightning.
Twenty years ago there had been another Maria on Maple Street, a young woman with laughing eyes and dreams of becoming a teacher, a woman he’d loved desperately and lost through his own foolish pride. «‘Emma, I’m going to help you,’ Marcus said, his mind racing. «‘But first I need to speak with your mama.
Is she home now?’ Emma nodded eagerly. «‘She’s sleeping. She sleeps a lot now because the medicine makes her tired, but she’d want to meet you.
She always says, good people exist, even when times are hard.’ Marcus carefully helped Emma pack her toys, his hands shaking slightly as he folded the small blanket. As they walked toward his car, he caught his reflection in the building’s glass doors, a successful businessman worth hundreds of millions, but inside he felt like the twenty-five-year-old who’d made the biggest mistake of his life. The drive to Maple Street would take twenty minutes, twenty minutes, to prepare for an encounter that might destroy him or save him.
As Emma chatted excitedly in the back seat about all the things she wanted to buy for her mama once she sold her toys, Marcus gripped the steering wheel and prayed he was wrong about what he was beginning to suspect. Maria Rodriguez lay in the narrow bed, her once vibrant face now pale and drawn from weeks of illness. At thirty-eight she still possessed the gentle beauty that had once captivated a young Marcus Wellington.
Though years of hard work and single motherhood had etched lines of determination around her dark eyes, the sound of footsteps in the hallway made her struggle to sit up. Emma’s voice floated through the thin apartment walls, unusually excited and accompanied by deeper tones that made Maria’s heart skip with an inexplicable sense of familiarity. Mama! Mama! I sold my toys! Emma burst through the door, her face glowing with triumph.
This nice man helped me, and he wants to talk to you. Maria’s world tilted on its axis as Marcus Wellington stepped into her humble living-room. Twenty years fell away in an instant, the same strong jaw, the same intense grey eyes that had once promised her forever, the same way he unconsciously ran his hand through his hair when nervous.
Hello, Maria, Marcus said softly, his voice carrying all the weight of two decades of regret. Marcus, she whispered, pulling Emma close protectively. What are you doing here? Emma looked between the two adults, confusion clouding her young features.
Do you know each other? Mama, he’s going to help us buy your medicine. Maria’s eyes filled with tears, not of joy, but of fear. The secret she’d guarded for seven years, the truth she’d sworn she’d take to her grave, suddenly felt impossibly heavy.
She’d seen Marcus’ face in the business section of newspapers, watched his company’s commercials on their old television, always wondering if fate would ever bring them together again. Emma, sweetheart, Maria said carefully, why don’t you go wash your hands and change clothes? The grown-ups need to talk. As Emma reluctantly left the room, Marcus sat heavily in the room’s single chair, his expensive suit looking absurdly out of place in the sparse apartment.
Maria, I had no idea you were. I mean, Emma said her mama’s name, and when she gave me this address—he held up the paper with shaking hands—you thought I was dead, Maria finished quietly. Like everyone else from our old life.
The car accident twenty years ago had been devastating. Maria’s family killed instantly, herself barely surviving with amnesia that lasted months. By the time her memories returned, Marcus had already been married to someone else.
Someone from his wealthy social circle who could give him the life his family expected. I looked for you, Marcus said desperately. When I heard about the accident, I went to the hospital, but they said there were no survivors.
How could they have gotten it wrong? Maria’s laugh was bitter. They didn’t get it wrong, Marcus. Maria González died in that accident.
Maria Rodríguez was born in that hospital bed, with no family, no past, and no reason to contact the man who’d moved on so completely. But there was something else, something that made Maria’s hands tremble as she watched Marcus struggle with the revelation, something that made Emma’s bright eyes and stubborn chin suddenly seem less like coincidence and more like destiny. Marcus spent the next three days unable to focus on anything but Maria and Emma.