Chapter 3
Sophie noticed Patricia staring at her.
She moved closer to Rachel.
“Mom, can we go?”
Rachel immediately wrapped an arm around her.
“Yes.”
I understood.
Whatever answers we wanted, the children could not stand in a restaurant parking lot while adults tore their identities apart.
I looked at Daniel.
“Take Lily home.”
His face fell.
“Emily—”
“Take her home.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going with Rachel.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
It was the first time in eleven years I looked at my husband and genuinely did not know whether I trusted him.
“You have known for twenty-two days.”
His face crumpled.
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“I wanted proof.”
“And I deserved the truth.”
Lily grabbed my hand.
“Mom, don’t leave.”
I dropped beside her.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Then come home.”
The fear in her voice changed everything.
There would be time for answers.
My daughter needed me now.
I looked at Rachel.
She understood without explanation.
She handed me a card.
“My number is on there.”
“Tomorrow?”
She nodded.
“Tomorrow.”
Sophie whispered, “Will Lily be there?”
Lily looked at her.
For one strange second, the two girls simply stared at each other.
Same age.
Same birthday.
Two lives tied together by something neither understood.
“I don’t know,” Lily said.
Then she held my hand tighter.
We drove home in silence.
Patricia tried calling Daniel six times.
He ignored every call.
At home, Lily went directly to her bedroom.
I followed.
She sat on the edge of her bed, still wearing the sparkly blue dress she had chosen for her birthday.
Her birthday.
I had almost forgotten.
The presents were still in the trunk.
The cake was still at the restaurant.
Her eighth birthday would forever be the night she learned her parents might not share her blood.
I sat beside her.
She stared at the floor.
“Are you going to give me to that lady?”
My throat closed.
“No.”
“Even if she’s my real mom?”
I turned her face toward me.
“I am your real mom.”
“But she’s my blood mom.”
“Maybe.”
“And the other girl is your blood daughter.”
“Maybe.”
Lily’s chin trembled.
“Do you want her more?”
That question almost destroyed me.
I pulled her into my arms.
“No one could ever replace you.”
“But you look like her.”
“I know.”
“I don’t look like you.”
I kissed her hair.
“You have my terrible habit of leaving socks under the couch.”
She gave a tiny broken laugh.
“You hate peas exactly like I do.”
“That’s not DNA.”
“No. It’s eight years of sitting at the dinner table together.”
She sniffed.
I continued.
“You laugh when you’re nervous. You sing too loudly in the shower. You always steal the marshmallows from my hot chocolate. When you were four, you refused to sleep unless I checked the closet three times.”
“Four times.”
“See?”
She finally looked at me.
“You’re mine because I love you. Not because of a test.”
“Promise?”
“Forever.”
Daniel stood in the doorway.
He was crying.
Lily saw him.
“Are you still my dad?”
Daniel crossed the room in three steps and fell to his knees.
“Yes.”
“But the test said no.”
“I don’t care.”
“Grandma cares.”
His expression changed.
“I know.”
“She hates me now.”
“No.”
“She called me a mistake.”
Daniel looked sick.
“That should never have happened.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
The question hit him harder than anything I could have said.
He had no answer.
Lily crawled under her blankets.
“I’m tired.”
I kissed her forehead.
Daniel tried to.
She turned away.
He stood there for a moment.
Then he walked out.
I stayed until she fell asleep.
When I entered the kitchen, Daniel was sitting at the table with his head in his hands.
I closed the door behind me.
“Start talking.”
He looked up.
“I noticed something six months ago.”
“What?”
“Lily had that school project about blood types.”
I remembered.
She had come home asking everybody whether we knew ours.
Daniel was O positive.
I was A positive.
Lily’s pediatric chart listed AB positive.
At the time, I thought nothing of it.
Daniel apparently did.
“I searched online,” he said. “Then I asked a doctor.”
My stomach twisted.
“And instead of asking me, you bought a DNA test?”
“I panicked.”
“You thought I cheated.”
“For about three days.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Three days is plenty.”
“The result said I wasn’t her father.”
“So you spent six months believing I betrayed you?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
He looked at me.
“I tested again.”
I went still.
“A legal test.”
He nodded.
“Same result.”
“And you still said nothing?”
“I started looking at hospital records.”
“Without me.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“You say, ‘Emily, something impossible happened and I’m terrified.’ That’s how.”
He looked down.
“I know.”
“No. You know now.”
He flinched.
Good.
I wanted him to feel a fraction of what I felt.
“Where does Patricia come in?”
Daniel rubbed his face.
“I told her after the second test.”
“Why?”
“She was my mother.”
I stared at him.
“Was?”
His eyes hardened.
“When I told her, she didn’t look surprised.”
My anger disappeared for a second.
“What?”
“She started asking very specific questions.”
“What kind?”
“Whether I still had Lily’s newborn bracelet. Whether you remembered which nurse discharged us. Whether the hospital had ever contacted us.”
My skin turned cold.
“You didn’t think that was strange?”
“I did.”
“What did she say?”
“She claimed she was trying to help.”
“Of course.”
“A few weeks later, she gave me the bracelet you saw tonight.”
“Where did she get it?”
“She said she found it among Dad’s things.”
Daniel’s father had died four years earlier.
Charles Carter had been a wealthy commercial real-estate attorney.
He had also been Patricia’s shadow.
Whatever she wanted, Charles made possible.
“Why would your father have my hospital bracelet?”
“I asked her.”
“And?”
“She said Dad must have accidentally taken it home from the hospital.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“Then twenty-two days ago?”
Daniel nodded.
“Rachel emailed me.”
“How did she find you?”
“She had a copy of the hospital room assignments and an old insurance record. She found my company online.”
“What did she say?”
“That she believed the babies had been switched.”
I stared at him.
“And you met her.”
“Yes.”
“With Sophie?”
“No. Just Rachel.”
“Did you tell Patricia?”
“No.”
“Then how did Patricia get Rachel’s number?”
His face changed.
“I don’t know.”
I believed him.
That somehow made it worse.
Someone knocked on our front door.
It was almost midnight.
Daniel and I froze.
The knocking came again.
Then my phone rang.
Rachel.
I answered immediately.
“Hello?”
Her breathing was fast.
“Emily, I’m sorry to come to your house this late.”
I looked toward the front door.
“You’re outside?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I went home.”
Her voice shook.
“My apartment had been broken into.”
Daniel stood.
Rachel continued.
“Nothing valuable was taken.”
“What was?”
“The original letter from Nurse Vale.”
I felt ice move through my body.
“Did you call the police?”
“They’re there now.”
“Then why did you come here?”
There was a pause.
“Because they left something behind.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
I opened the door.
Rachel stood beneath the porch light with Sophie beside her.
Her hands were trembling.
She held up a picture.
It showed me leaving St. Matthew’s Medical Center eight years earlier.
I was in a wheelchair.
Daniel was beside me.
I was holding a newborn.
On the back, someone had written:
THE WRONG BABY WENT HOME.
May you like
Underneath was another sentence.
PATRICIA KNOWS WHY.
