Chapter 11
"You can come in," Maya said after a long, agonizing pause, stepping back to allow him clearance through the doorway.
Ethan walked into the studio loft, his eyes taking in the expansive, light-filled space. Canvases lined the exposed brick walls, featuring intricate, highly detailed botanical illustrations of ferns, mosses, and wildflowers rendered in stunning watercolor and ink. Sketchbooks, jars of brushes, and tubes of paint covered a large wooden work table in the center of the room. It was a creative sanctuary, orderly yet bursting with life—a stark contrast to the sterile, repressed environment of the home he had grown up in.
Maya closed the door behind him and walked over to the kitchen counter, leaning against the edge with her arms crossed tightly over her apron. She didn't offer him coffee or tea; she simply watched him with an unflinching gaze that demanded an explanation.
"How did you find me?" she asked, her voice clipped and guarded. "People like your parents spent a lot of money making sure my trail went cold thirty years ago. What changed?"
"Dad died six months ago," Ethan said, standing near the doorway with his hands tucked into his pockets. "And a couple of days ago, I found a box in the attic. Letters, adoption papers, social work records. Mom lied to my face for my entire life, pretending I was an only child while keeping you locked away in a cardboard box of secrets."
Maya let out a short, bitter laugh that lacked any real humor. "Welcome to the club. They lied to me, too. My adoptive parents were wonderful people—kind, loving, decent—they never hid the fact that I was adopted. But they told me the official story: that my biological parents were young, impoverished college students who tragically died in a car accident shortly after I was born." She gestured vaguely toward her artwork. "Turns out, death is a lot easier to digest than the truth: that I was simply inconvenient to a wealthy family with political aspirations."
"Mom didn't want to give you up," Ethan said, hearing himself defend Eleanor even though he despised himself for doing it. "She was nineteen, terrified, and completely controlled by our grandfather. That doesn't excuse what she did, but—"
"Don't," Maya interrupted sharply, holding up a hand to stop him. "Don't come into my home and make excuses for the woman who traded me away like a bad stock investment. You grew up with her. You got to eat breakfast at her table, celebrate holidays in that house, and be loved by her. I got a check-box in a filing cabinet and a fake backstory."
May you like
Ethan flinched as if he had been slapped. The justice in her words was undeniable, cutting straight through any lingering familial loyalty he might have held. He set his duffel bag down on the floor by the door and pulled Margaret Vance’s manila envelope out of his jacket pocket, laying it gently on the edge of her work table.
"I didn't come here to excuse her," Ethan said softly, meeting her gaze head-on. "I came here because I wanted to know who my sister was. And because I needed to look someone in the eye who actually knows what it feels like to live in a house built on lies."
