Chapter 9 - My mistake
I made my own serious mistake two days later.
I was angry.
Jessica had lied to Michael his entire life.
She had humiliated my daughters.
Now she called a sixteen-year-old mother unstable as if that resolved everything.
I photographed the bracelet.
The old photo.
Then sent both to a private Hayes family group chat.
Message:
Ask Jessica why Claire Hayes was erased.
Twenty-six relatives.
I thought I was forcing transparency.
Within three hours, one cousin sent the image to someone outside the family.
By morning, a local gossip site had it.
SECRET HAYES WOMAN MAY BE MICHAEL HAYES’S REAL MOTHER.
Michael called me.
“What did you do?”
I froze.
“I sent it to the family.”
“You sent a photograph of my biological mother to twenty-six people before we even found her.”
There.
My anger had turned Claire into evidence before I knew whether she was alive.
Or wanted to be found.
“I’m sorry.”
“Take it down.”
I deleted the message.
Too late.
Jessica’s attorney accused me of a harassment campaign.
Exaggerated.
But my conduct had been reckless.
My own lawyer said:
“Stop trying to win the family argument before the facts arrive.”
I stopped.
May you like
Painfully.
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