Nora’s words—”backdated,” “forgery,” “hotel safe”—replayed in my mind all night. The audacity of Julian Kross, the callousness of Victoria. But also, a sliver of hope. If that guardianship document was fake, what else was? And what might Nora find?
The next morning, I knew exactly what I had to do. My memory, sharpened by decades of remembering rail car numbers and maintenance schedules, flashed back to 2004. Victoria’s arrival at the hospital, the nurses, the paperwork. There had to be an official record.
I told the girls my plan. Maya immediately offered to drive. “I’m coming with you, Grandpa.”
Chloe and Sienna nodded in agreement. “We all are,” Sienna said firmly. “We’re a team.”
The County General Hospital’s archived records building was a nondescript brick structure, tucked behind the main hospital campus. It smelled of old paper and dust. Inside, rows of filing cabinets stretched into the dim distance, silent sentinels of forgotten lives.
At the reception desk, an elderly medical clerk with kind eyes and a name tag that read “Eleanor” looked up. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she wore a floral apron over her scrubs.
“I’m looking for patient records from October 2004,” I began, my voice a little shaky. “For Victoria Pendelton. It was an emergency admission, postpartum.”
Eleanor’s brow furrowed. She typed slowly on her ancient computer. “Pendelton… Victoria… October 2004… Ah, yes. Triplets.”
She looked up at my granddaughters, then back at me, a flicker of recognition in her eyes. “I remember that. A cold winter, that was. Such tiny babies. Your… daughter, wasn’t it?”
I simply nodded. Eleanor rose, moving with a surprising agility for her age, and led us down a narrow aisle between towering shelves. She pulled a dusty file from a specific slot.
“Here it is,” she said, handing me a thick, yellowed folder. “Pendelton, Victoria. Admission date: October 9, 2004.”
My hands trembled as I opened the file. Inside, were the faded forms, the nurses’ notes, the discharge papers. My eyes scanned for anything related to coercion or duress. Nothing.
Then, I found it. A signed “Voluntary Relinquishment of Parental Rights” form, dated October 12, 2004. Victoria’s signature, unmistakable, was clear at the bottom. It stated she willingly and knowingly surrendered her three three-day-old infants.
Below it, a “Toxicological Screening Report.” My heart hammered in my chest. It confirmed she failed a drug screening upon admission. A cocktail of substances was listed. Not postpartum depression, but drug use.
This was Twist 7. The concrete, irrefutable evidence. Victoria hadn’t been under duress; she had been under the influence. She hadn’t been forced; she had willingly abandoned her babies.
Maya pointed to the report, her finger tracing the lines. “Grandpa, this… this changes everything.”
Sienna started to cry, quiet tears of understanding and pain. Chloe just stared, her face a mask of shock. The truth, stark and brutal, was laid bare in a twenty-year-old medical record. Victoria’s entire narrative, her “tragic mother” comeback story, was a monstrous lie.
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