I just stared at her and it felt like the floor had fallen out from under me.
“That can’t be right,” I whispered. “Laura said the father wasn’t in the picture. She was raising the baby alone.”
Grace swallowed hard. “There wasn’t any father, Emily. Not in the way she told you. The embryo was mine. Created from my eggs and donor sperm. Laura was just carrying my baby.”
My hands went numb. I took the envelope from her trembling fingers and slowly opened it with shaking hands.
Inside were copies of medical records, signed surrogacy agreements with Laura’s signature, and clinic documents with dates that matched her pregnancy timeline.
The air seemed to thicken. I could barely hear anything except the sound of my own pulse.
Grace looked at me with tears streaming down her face. “When I found out Laura had died during childbirth, the hospital told me the baby had been adopted, but they wouldn’t tell me where. I spent years searching. It took me this long to find you.”
I gripped the papers so hard they crumpled. “She never told us any of this.”
Grace nodded. “I believe she couldn’t. Maybe she changed her mind about the arrangement. Maybe she wanted to keep the baby for herself. I don’t know what happened.”
Behind us, Lily’s voice floated from the living room. She was humming while drawing at her little table, completely unaware of the storm at our door.
