The Eighteen-Year Lie

The Eighteen-Year Lie

Shirlee Melnick

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For eighteen years, I've been told a lie. My husband, Mark, my doctors, even my own parents, convinced me I suffered from a delusional disorder, that my deep ache for a daughter named Emily was just a symptom. They said I only had one child, my sweet son Ethan. Yet, I always felt a part of me was missing. Then, on Ethan's wedding day, a tarnished silver locket tumbled out from under my bed – the very one I gave my daughter, Emily, for her fifth birthday, the day she vanished. The fog of medication burned away, replaced by searing clarity. Emily was real. Mark had lied. I stormed into the wedding reception, publicly accusing him of murder, of burying Emily under our oak tree. But instead of finding justice, I was dragged away by the police, deemed delusional, and forcibly committed to a psychiatric facility. There, Mark and my parents finally 'confessed' a horrifying truth: Emily died in a car crash I caused, and her memory was erased from my mind to 'protect' me. Wracked with grief and guilt, I visited Emily's supposed grave. But how could a daughter I'd barely remembered, who allegedly died eighteen years ago, still whisper 'Save me' in my dreams? And why did her headstone, beneath an ancient oak, look... disturbingly new? My bare hands clawed through the earth until they struck wood. The small casket, still pristine. Not decaying, not old. And utterly, horrifyingly empty. Emily isn't dead. My daughter is alive, and Mark, my husband, is a monster. The fight for Emily has just begun.

Introduction

For eighteen years, I've been told a lie.

My husband, Mark, my doctors, even my own parents, convinced me I suffered from a delusional disorder, that my deep ache for a daughter named Emily was just a symptom.

They said I only had one child, my sweet son Ethan.

Yet, I always felt a part of me was missing.

Then, on Ethan's wedding day, a tarnished silver locket tumbled out from under my bed – the very one I gave my daughter, Emily, for her fifth birthday, the day she vanished.

The fog of medication burned away, replaced by searing clarity.

Emily was real.

Mark had lied.

I stormed into the wedding reception, publicly accusing him of murder, of burying Emily under our oak tree.

But instead of finding justice, I was dragged away by the police, deemed delusional, and forcibly committed to a psychiatric facility.

There, Mark and my parents finally 'confessed' a horrifying truth: Emily died in a car crash I caused, and her memory was erased from my mind to 'protect' me.

Wracked with grief and guilt, I visited Emily's supposed grave.

But how could a daughter I'd barely remembered, who allegedly died eighteen years ago, still whisper 'Save me' in my dreams?

And why did her headstone, beneath an ancient oak, look... disturbingly new?

My bare hands clawed through the earth until they struck wood.

The small casket, still pristine.

Not decaying, not old.

And utterly, horrifyingly empty.

Emily isn't dead.

My daughter is alive, and Mark, my husband, is a monster.

The fight for Emily has just begun.

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Reborn at Thirty: His Ultimate Regret

Reborn at Thirty: His Ultimate Regret

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The piercing beep of the carbon monoxide detector was the last sound I heard on Christmas Eve, my thirtieth birthday. Then, a searing pain, and I gasped awake, not in my cold, dark apartment, but in a sterile, bright hospital room, giving birth. I was twenty-five again, watching Liam, my charismatic husband, and his perfectly coiffed mother, Brenda, barely acknowledge our newborn son, Leo. I remembered my first life: Liam' s growing indifference, sacrificing my culinary dreams for a love that was never returned, watching my son embrace another woman. The pain of that life, more real than the lingering ache of childbirth, burned in my gut: I vowed I would not live that life again. When Chloe, the woman Liam had left me for, showed up at our door, ostensibly as a "colleague," and I overheard Liam confessing that I was nothing more than "the next best thing," "a substitute." My heart shattered, but this time, it forged ice. When Liam sabotaged my return to the culinary world, taking the restaurant opportunity I had secured and handing it to Chloe, then poaching my entire team, all to publicly humiliate me. The numbness shattered, replaced by a white-hot, furious clarity: This was war. I walked into his office, saw Chloe perched on his desk, and told him, "Liam, I want a divorce." He followed me to Paris, trying to reclaim me, but I refused, winning the culinary competition he' d tried to sabotage. I knew, with sickening certainty, that he had lost the best part of himself. I built my own kingdom, and the future was a blank page, and for the first time, I was the one holding the pen.

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