Chapter 1
“Then why was my son’s ID bracelet removed?”
I kept my voice low.
Margaret’s face went blank.
The charge nurse stood beside the bassinet holding the small white identification band between two gloved fingers. One side of the clasp had been bent hard enough to leave a pale stress mark in the plastic.
My son made a tiny sound beneath the clean blanket.
Emma stirred weakly behind me.
I moved closer to the bassinet.
“Was this opened accidentally?”
The nurse shook her head.
“No.”
My mother immediately stepped forward.
“It was loose.”
The nurse looked at her.
“No, ma’am.”
Cold.
Certain.
“The clasp was forced.”
Silence.
Margaret’s white blouse was streaked with the same black pigment she had rubbed onto my newborn son. She looked ridiculous now, but nothing about the room felt funny.
I turned toward Emma.
Her eyes were open.
Barely.
She was exhausted from childbirth, but the moment she saw Margaret still standing near the bassinet, panic sharpened her expression.
“Adrian.”
I went to her.
She grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t let her take him.”
Everything inside me stopped.
I looked back at my mother.
Margaret whispered, “Emma is exhausted.”
Emma tightened her hand around me.
“She already tried.”
Linda Parker had been standing near the window, pale and silent until then.
Now she stepped forward.
“She did.”
Margaret turned on her.
“Be careful.”
Linda did not retreat.
“I watched you ask the nurse where newborn identification supplies were kept.”
The charge nurse’s eyes narrowed.
Margaret’s expression changed.
I looked at my mother.
“You asked about identification bands?”
“I asked questions because nobody in this hospital seems capable of protecting you.”
“From my newborn son?”
She said nothing.
The nurse examined the bassinet.
Then she bent down and reached beneath the lower blanket shelf.
When she stood again, she was holding a second identification bracelet.
Not my son’s.
Another baby’s.
Margaret closed her eyes.
I stared at the two bands.
One forcibly removed from my child.
One hidden beneath his bassinet.
The pigment was no longer the most disturbing thing in the room.
May you like
My mother had not simply wanted me to doubt my son.
She had been preparing to make it appear that the child in Emma’s arms was not the baby she gave birth to.
