The Twin Sisters Rescued a Baby Left Beside the Garbage — Then Refused the Millionaire’s Reward and Exposed a Terrible Secret
Chapter 5
For the next two days, Marcus came every afternoon.
He brought groceries once.
Lena refused them.
He brought formula.
She accepted that.
He brought a portable heater.
She refused that too.
“You don’t have to punish yourself because we’re poor,” he said one afternoon.
Lena stopped washing the baby’s bottle.
“I’m not punishing anyone.”
“Then why refuse?”
“Because if I take everything you offer, eventually I won’t know whether you’re helping me or buying access to him.”
Marcus looked at her for a long moment.
“You think I’d do that?”
“I don’t know you.”
“That is fair.”
Lena resumed washing the bottle.
Marcus stood there awkwardly.
Then he noticed the twins sitting on the floor.
June was drawing with a pencil so short it barely fit between her fingers.
Marcus crouched.
“What are you drawing?”
“A house.”
“With a chimney?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t have one.”
He looked at Lily’s drawing.
Hers was different.
Three people stood outside a building.
A fourth figure stood farther away.
Marcus pointed.
“Who’s that?”
Lily covered the page with her hand.
“Nobody.”
He smiled.
“That’s what my daughter used to say.”
Lily looked up.
“You have another daughter?”
“No.”
He paused.
“I had a daughter.”
Lena stopped moving.
Marcus looked toward the baby.
“She died.”
Nobody spoke.
“How?” Lily asked.
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“She was six.”
June lowered her pencil.
“What happened?”
“An accident.”
The word sat heavily in the room.
Marcus stood.
“I should go.”
After he left, Lena looked at the drawing again.
The fourth figure had been erased.
But Lily had pressed the pencil so hard that the outline remained in the paper.
