Seven-year-old Madison went into a coma after a car accident with her mother, Gwen. The mother said her car was faulty, but others started to believe that she caused the crash on purpose. Then Madison woke up and screamed the words that shocked everyone in the room.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Robins,” Nurse Emma told Sam. “Children are resilient. I’m sure your little girl will wake up soon.”
Sam looked worriedly at his daughter, Madison, who had been in the hospital for the past three months. After Nurse Emma left the room, Sam’s raised eyebrows pulled close together as he extended his arm to scratch his head.
He walked outside the room and sat in the waiting area. “I hope Madison will never wake up,” he thought. Unlike most fathers, Sam didn’t want his daughter to open her eyes. He wished for the worst while thinking about his little girl.
But a few days later, Madison stirred in her bed, and she stood up suddenly. “I know the truth about my mom!” the little girl yelled. Sam’s face paled, and he considered running away, but a doctor and Nurse Emma heard the screams.
Three months ago…
Sam’s wife, Gwen, was cleaning his home office and thinking about her difficult pregnancy with Madison seven years ago. The doctors told her to take it easy because she could go into labor unexpectedly. Despite being careful, the worst happened.
She barely remembered anything from the birth. But when she woke, Sam was there by her side with a baby in his arms. He smiled at her warmly. It would be the last time he would smile at her.
When they brought Madison home, Sam withdrew utterly. He spent extra hours at work and frequented bars. He told Gwen about his salary raise, but she never saw that money. Instead, Sam spent those extra dollars buying designer shoes, expensive perfumes, and prolonged “business trips.”
It had been like that all this time, but Gwen had a nagging feeling in her gut. While fixing a leaking tap, she reached for the old toolbox in the kitchen cabinet. After opening it, she saw her husband’s old phone, which he had replaced after Madison’s birth.
Gwen didn’t like the idea of snooping around, but she had to do something. She plugged the phone and turned it on. A text thread from someone called Ofelia caught her attention. Gwen scrolled to the beginning and discovered she was Sam’s boss’s daughter, who died years ago.
“Oh my god! They had an affair!” she exclaimed softly while reading. She also discovered that Ofelia got pregnant around the same time as Gwen. Sam asked her to get rid of the baby, but Ofelia refused. He seemed to break up with her afterward.
“But this is strange,” Gwen muttered when the text thread ended. Hoping to find the answers to her questions, Gwen snooped through her husband’s home office. Inside one of the drawers of his desk were papers Sam had never shown her. She stopped at one that read, “Proof of death.” It belonged to a Baby Girl Robins.
That’s when everything clicked into place. Her daughter died during her difficult childbirth, and Sam had replaced her with Madison, Ofelia’s daughter, who was born around the same time. Gwen started crying thinking about it.
She also found Madison’s actual birth certificate, which confirmed her suspicions. “I can’t believe Sam gave me a fake certificate and lied all these years,” Gwen sobbed inconsolably. But that was not the worst part. Snooping further into his old phone, she discovered that Sam was scum.
His old boss had begged to see his granddaughter, but Sam refused. The man died later that year, as far as Gwen remembered. That means that he never got to meet his granddaughter, she realized.
Gwen was shocked after fate revealed her husband’s true face. It was hard for her to believe that her husband had hidden a dozen secrets from her all these years. As tears trickled down her cheeks, Gwen ran to Madison’s room and woke her up.
“We’re running away from him right now!” Gwen decided with conviction as she raised her hand to wipe the stream of tears on her cheeks. She quickly threw a couple of her dresses and some of her daughter’s clothes into a bag and headed towards the door with Madison.
“Mommy! Where are we going?” Madison asked when she noticed the big bag in her mother’s hand.
“We’re taking a little road trip, honey. Just us girls! It’s going to be super fun!” Gwen faked cheerfulness for her daughter. She helped Madison get into the car while holding an umbrella to shield herself from the heavy raindrops.
Gwen slowly drove on the wet roads while trying to get away from her husband. As she thought about all the lies he had told her in the past, she unknowingly rested her foot on the gas pedal and crashed her car into a tree. The next thing she knew, she was being wheeled through the hospital.
“My daughter! Where’s my daughter?” she yelled at the people around her, but no one answered.
Back in the present…
After hearing Madison’s screams, the doctors rushed into the room, but the little girl wouldn’t calm down. “My mom! Where’s mommy?” she continued yelling while the staff checked her vitals. Her father spoke.
“Madison, calm down. They need to check you out,” Sam said, trying to remain calm.
“NO! I heard you! I heard you! Mommy is not evil! Mommy protected me! She hugged me upside down. It was cold! She said, ‘Everything will be alright,’” Madison cried.
Nurse Emma was shocked after hearing what Madison said. She looked at Sam, who had turned towards the door, and recalled what had happened when the police talked to him after Gwen and Madison’s accident.
“I know Gwen crashed her car on purpose,” Sam told the police officer. “She wanted to kidnap Madison because she had just learned the little girl was another woman’s daughter. Gwen intended to hurt my innocent daughter, officer.”
When Gwen woke up a few days after the accident, the police officers didn’t allow her to see Madison. Instead, they arrested her because they believed Sam had told the truth.
But now that Nurse Emma heard the little girl screaming for her mommy, she knew the truth. This man is evil. I’m calling the police, she thought and exited the room when Madison calmed down. She asked for the same officer who came three months ago.
“Where’s Mr. Robins?” the officer asked Nurse Emma after talking to the little girl. They couldn’t exactly take Madison’s testimony as fact, but it painted a different picture than what Sam explained after the accident.
“He was sitting right here in the waiting area when I called you, officer,” Nurse Emma said and pointed towards the last seat in the corridor. “Oh no! Did he hear me talk to you on the phone?”
“That’s a possibility. He might have used the back door to escape. Let me look at the security camera footage before I send my team to search for him,” the officer said. “I guess his wife was telling the truth all along.”
A few hours later, Gwen was released from her home arrest, which her lawyer had negotiated as there wasn’t enough evidence of malicious intent on her part. She ran to the hospital and hugged Madison tightly.
“Mommy!” Madison whimpered.
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m never letting you out of my sight again, and nothing will keep us apart!” Gwen promised.
Sam had tried to destroy the evidence of his actions after the accident when he realized that his wife discovered the truth, but he couldn’t find his old phone. He searched the entire house, but it wasn’t there, so he assumed he might have lost it. Little did he know that Gwen had taken the phone with her.
The police believed what Sam told them because he was a well-known businessman. Since they didn’t find any evidence against him, they thought Gwen was the one at fault.
“I have evidence against Sam, officer,” Gwen said while handing Sam’s phone to the police officers. They didn’t want to take it as evidence three months ago but accepted it now.
Since Sam couldn’t skip town, the officers arrested him a few days after he left the hospital. They now had enough evidence to keep him behind bars. After learning about his arrest, Gwen and Madison went on a road trip that helped them heal and made Madison realize the actual value of relationships.
What can we learn from this story?
Follow your instincts. Gwen had a nagging feeling when her husband started to behave strangely after Madison’s birth, but she waited years before doing anything. She should’ve acted sooner.
It’s not blood that makes family but love. Madison and Gwen were not biologically related, but they lived together as a family, and their bond remained unaffected even after knowing the truth.
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