Talk

“I know why you were kidnapped.”

“I know why Grandmother took me away.”

Adam and Melanie froze, their words hanging in the air. Their eyes met, the sudden realisation flashing between them like an unspoken question.

Without thinking, Melanie grabbed Adam’s arm and pulled him away from the balcony. His voice followed, quick and sharp. “You know why your grandmother took you away?”

She nodded once, not trusting her voice yet. Then, without a word, she reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. “Here. Look at this.”

Adam took it from her, his gaze narrowing as he studied the image. A flicker of surprise passed over his face. “So… this is your mother?”

Melanie’s eyes widened. “How did you guess that so quickly?” It had taken her a good few hours of staring at the picture to come to that realisation!

Adam reached into his coat pocket and took out the diary she had given him. He placed it on the table between them. “We should have seen this earlier. It would have saved us from a lot of misunderstandings. It would have sorted out many things. I’m just glad that I read it before it was too late.”

She wrote about the truth. Marianne Thomas is not your mother.”

Melanie blinked and then felt her heart ache. Even though she had yet to have accepted Marianne as her mother, she had been happy to have one. It seemed her happiness had been premature.. “So it is true?”

Adam nodded, and opened a page to the diary, I didn’t read the entire diary. But your grandmother started writing it after your mother fell sick. I think… Here, she has mentioned, Marianne used to be your mother’s nurse. Your mother was diagnosed with cancer soon after Melody was born. Marianne came to take care of her. She took care of her like a younger sister and Marianne’s bright personality always gave your mother hope and comfort.”

“By the time your mother passed away, Marianne had been in the house for a while. Your mother was called Melrose.. Both your names come from hers… Richard Thomas and Melrose were deeply in love. So, Melrose was worried that her being gone from the world would leave him alone. So, your mother asked your father to marry Marianne so that you and Melody would have someone to take care of you and he would have a partner.”

Melanie looked down at the diary and rubbed her hands over the page. “Your grandmother agreed at the time. She did not like the idea, but she accepted it because her only daughter had chosen Marianne herself.”

Melanie frowned. What did this mean? While thinking in the afternoon, she had thought that maybe her father had cheated on her mother and that was why her grandmother had taken her away.

Melanie’s frowned and as she wondered the question,her voice was low. “Then why did she take me away?”

Adam’s tone turned heavier, and he turned the page. “One day she saw something Marianne did to you. She hasn’t mentioned the details here but from her tone, I think it made her quite angry… and suspicious of Marianne She wrote that she started investigating and confronted them. Marianne denied everything. Your grandmother became worried about your safety. That is when she decided to take you away.”

Melanie slowly opened the diary. She saw her grandmother’s handwriting on the first page. Adam leaned back and let her read.

“I did not want to accept another woman in my daughter’s place, but she asked me to. She said she trusted Marianne. She said she was dying and wanted the girls to have a mother’s care. I agreed because it was her last wish.”

Melanie turned the page.

“After she passed, I tried to believe that Marianne would be good to them. For a while, I thought she was. But the day I saw her with Melanie, I knew I had been wrong. My daughter’s trust had been misplaced. I confronted her, but she refused to admit it. I could not leave Melanie there. I feared what would happen if I did.”

“You even had panic attacks at the time. Your grandmother wrote that the first time she saw it happen, she knew something was deeply wrong. She didn’t trust Marianne’s explanations. She said she could see fear in your eyes that no child should have.”

Melanie swallowed, the faint memory tugging at her, blurry and unsettling.

Adam went on, turning the page so she could see for herself. “Here- she wrote that it was that panic attack which made her decide she couldn’t wait any longer. She started making plans to take you away. She said she knew it would mean being hunted, judged, and called a criminal, but she would rather face all of that than leave you where you were.”

Melanie’s gaze slid over the neat handwriting and she closed her eyes, “Once I took her, she never had another panic attack. Not once. I believe this is proof that I did the right thing. And I would never regret it… Now, the only regret is not being able to bring Melody over. I tried.. God I tried to save Melody from Marianne, but failed.”

Melanie clenched her hands and closed the diary. If Marianne had done something once, she could do it again, and the danger might not be aimed at her alone this time. “So, Marianne is indeed involved in all this. But the problem is we need to find what she did to me…that caused all this. And what she is planning now…”

Adam nodded and then sighed slowly,” There is something else also.”

“What?”

“If Marianne was the reason for your panic attacks then why did you have them when you saw Richard. And not Marianne.”

Melanie stilled. This was indeed a question that they would have to look for answers for.. The only problem? They had no idea where to look for answers.