Second Life, Second Chance

On my 50th wedding anniversary, I took my worn, crumbling marriage certificate to City Hall to renew it.

The clerk glanced at it—and froze.

“This certificate is fake. Our records show you’ve never been married.”

I stared.

“Impossible. I’ve been married to Damien Slater for fifty years.”

The clerk pulled up his file.

“Well…Yes, Mr. Slater is married—but his wife’s name is Vanessa Grant.”

Vanessa.

His widowed sister-in-law. A military doctor who’d spent decades living among the troops.

My hands shook as I returned home and confronted Damien.

He didn’t even try to deny it.

“I’ve treated you well all these years. Isn’t that enough? Vanessa is my true love. I only ever wanted her—our children, our life.”

My son counseled me and said, “To spare your feelings, my parents kept it a secret their whole lives. You’re getting old now. What more do you want?”

Only then did I learn the truth. The child I had raised with my own hands was never mine by blood.

Decades ago, Vanessa and I gave birth on the same day.

To ensure her child would grow up with intellect, privilege, and a future that I could provide, Damien switched our children.

My own son?

Damien drowned him in the pond the moment he drew breath.

And I—fool that I was—raised Vanessa’s boy as my own.

I even got him all the way to Claremont University.

The truth broke me, and I collapsed.

When I opened my eyes again—I was back.

Back to the day I went into labor.

A familiar pain surged through me as I opened my eyes, and a blinding white light hung overhead.

“Look at our son, Tanya—look how adorable he is,” my husband, Damien Slater, said as he cradled a baby at the edge of the hospital bed, his smile warm and bright.

I glanced around the room, then at Damien’s youthful face, and the realization hit me: I had been reborn.

This was the very day I had given birth in my previous life—the same day my own child had been killed by this monster!

Panic ignited within me.

Ignoring the pain from childbirth, I reached for the baby.

“Give him to me!”

Damien handed him over.

I immediately unwrapped the swaddling, pulled down the baby’s pants, and saw it—a round, bluish birthmark on his bottom.

Blood roared in my veins.

This was the ungrateful child I had raised in my previous life! It was Damien and his sister-in-law, Vanessa Grant’s illegitimate son!

Damien smiled calmly as he attempted to deceive me.

“They say a birthmark on the bottom is a good luck charm. Our son will be carefree and successful.”

I sneered coldly.

Of course—because I had been the sucker raising him all these years, pouring my heart and soul into his care.

I had sent him to Claremont University, and he had told me not to mind Damien and Vanessa’s affair.

I wanted to tear this entire family apart at the thought.

But the immediate