I Had His Daughter: She Had His Name Chapter 09

I Had His Daughter: She Had His Name Chapter 09

On the day of the second divorce hearing, both Grant and Mrs. Calloway were present.

Grant had lost a lot of weight. The whites of his eyes were threaded with red.

I sat in the plaintiff’s chair.

After the proceedings began, my lawyer submitted new evidence.

The first photograph was the aide’s uniform.

The lawyer asked, “Mr. Calloway, is the woman in this photograph your legal wife?”

Grant’s throat moved.

“Yes.”

“She had just given birth at the time, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And the child in her arms is your biological daughter, correct?”

Grant closed his eyes.

“Yes.”

The lawyer turned to the next page.

The Calloway Group press release.

[Calloway Group heir Grant Calloway welcomes firstborn son. Langford heiress and baby doing

well.]

The lawyer’s voice was steady.

“So you dressed your legal wife as a hospital aide, presented a third party as Mrs. Calloway, and

presented a child who was not biologically yours as the Calloway heir.”

“Mr. Calloway, is this so-called desire to reconcile about saving the marriage, or about salvaging your reputation now that it’s in ruins?”

Grant crushed the page in his fist. He couldn’t produce a single word.

The next piece of evidence was the nurse’s sworn statement.

On the second day postpartum, Mrs. Calloway and the night nurse had locked the hospital room and attempted to pump my breast milk without consent.

My medical records documented the high fever, the tornstitches, and soft tissue bruising on my

face.

Mrs. Calloway was called to the stand as a relevant witness.

The nurse’s statement was explicit:

[Mrs. Calloway stated that Ms. Langford had no breast milk and that Colton was allergic to formula She demanded that Ms. Whitfield pump milk for Colton. When Ms. Whitfield refused, a physical

altercation ensued.]

When Mrs. Calloway was questioned, her voice shot up.

“I was doing it for the child.”

The courtroom went still.

My lawyer looked at her.

“Which child?”

Mrs. Calloway gripped the edge of the table. She had no answer.

Not Luna, who was hypoglycemic from birth, whose lips had turned white from hunger.

Colton. The one later proven to have no biological relation to the Calloways.

She had spent her whole life obsessed with bloodline and legacy.

And she had slapped the mother of the only real Calloway grandchild.

Stolen milk from her own granddaughter.

Driven away the only grandchild who actually carried Calloway blood.

After the hearing, Mrs. Calloway sat in the courthouse hallway for a long time without moving.

She looked up at Grant, her voice shaking.

“Luna will she ever accept me as her grandmother?”

Grant was silent for a long time.

“She won’t even accept me.”

Mrs. Calloway covered her face and wept.

Things at the Calloway Group went from bad to worse.

The Southside project was lost for good.

Several partners terminated their contracts in succession.

The board cited severe reputational damage and executive misconduct, and formally removed Grant Calloway from the CEO position.

When he went back to the office to clear out his things, his secretary was already taking down the

nameplate.

It read: [CEO’s Office]

Grant stood in the doorway, and suddenly he thought of the father’s line on Luna’s birth form.

He had personally left his daughter’s father blank.

Now the Calloway Group had done the same to him.

All of this reached me later, piece by piece, through my lawyer and the news.

A few months after that, I got a call from my attorney.

“Stella, the divorce is finalized. You have full custody.”

I held the phone for a long time without speaking.

Luna was asleep in my arms, her tiny fist clutching the hem of my shirt.

I bent down and kissed her.

The sun was beautiful in Charleston that day.

I went to the courthouse and filed a legal name change.

The Stella Whitfield on my ID became Stella Pennington.

After that, I leased a small shop on a street corner.

The business license was registered under Stella Pennington.

The shop was held by a small LLC I’d set up. The public contact was listed as the store manager.

The name of the shop was Full Moon Bakery.

By the door, there was nothing but a tiny crescent moon logo.

Luna.

A full moon, complete.

Grant looked for me many times after that.

My phone was disconnected. My address was untraceable. Every message he sent was intercepted by my lawyer and sent back.

He searched every business registration in Hartford, Savannah, and Charleston under the name

Stella Whitfield, and never found me.

Because I had stopped living under that name a long time ago.

Grant eventually saw Luna’s residency information in the custody file.

Mrs. Calloway saw it too.

Luna had my last name.

I was her sole legal guardian.

The word Calloway appeared nowhere. Not once.

That was when she finally understood.

She hadn’t just lost a granddaughter.

She had erased the Calloway name from Luna’s life with her own hands.

Grant had his lawyer deliver a letter.

I didn’t open it. I sent it back unopened.

Some apologies don’t become more meaningful just because they arrive late.

They arrive too late, and that’s precisely why they no longer mean anything.