Chapter 4: The Other Mother
Her name was Rachel.
She was twenty-nine years old, and she had delivered her daughter forty minutes after I delivered mine.
She stood in the doorway in her hospital gown, one hand braced against the frame, and she could not stop looking at the baby in my husband's arms.
"Is that her?" she said.
"Is that my daughter?"
Nobody answered her immediately, because nobody could answer her yet.
The charge nurse was on the phone.
A second nurse was cross-referencing the delivery log.
A third had taken the bracelet from Diane and was photographing it.
"Someone tell me," Rachel said.
Her voice rose.
"Someone tell me right now."
Her own nurse stepped in behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.
"Rachel, we're verifying.
We need you to stay calm."
"My baby was in the bassinet and then she wasn't and nobody on the floor could tell me —" She pressed her hand over her mouth.
"I've been in the hallway for ten minutes.
Nobody would tell me anything."
My husband walked toward her slowly.
He held the baby out, not to give her, but so Rachel could see the baby's face.
Rachel made a sound I will never forget.
Not a word.
Just a sound.
"We still need to confirm," the charge nurse said firmly.
"No one is handing any infant to anyone until we have a verified match.
That is hospital protocol and I will not bypass it."
"Then confirm it," my husband said.
"Right now.
Do whatever you have to do."
It took eleven minutes.
I know because I watched the clock on the wall above the door, because watching the clock was the only thing keeping me from coming apart completely.
Ethan had climbed onto the bed beside me and pressed himself against my arm.
He didn't say anything.
Neither did I.
Diane sat in the chair in the corner with her face in her hands.
My mother-in-law stood by the window.
She had not spoken since my husband told her to stop.
But she was watching.
Her eyes moved from the nurses to the babies to Rachel to my husband, and there was something calculating in it that made me feel sick.
The charge nurse ended her call.
"The infant currently in this room's bassinet is confirmed as the biological child of —" she checked her tablet — "Rachel Moore, delivered at 2:14 p.m.
The infant currently being held is confirmed as the biological child of the patient in this room, delivered at 1:31 p.m."
Rachel crossed the room in four steps.
The nurse handed her daughter to her.
Rachel sat down in the nearest chair and bent over the baby and didn't look up for a long time.
My husband brought our daughter to me.
I took her with both arms and held her against my chest and pressed my face into the top of her head.
Ethan put his hand on the baby's back.
Very gently.
The way he'd practiced on a stuffed bear for three weeks before we came to the hospital.
"That's the right one," he said quietly.
"Yeah," my husband said.
"That's the right one."
Then my husband straightened up and turned around.
His mother was already reaching for the door handle.
"Sit down," he said.
She turned.
"Daniel, I think it's best if I —"
"Sit.
Down."
She sat.
Rachel looked up from her daughter.
Her eyes found my mother-in-law.
Her expression was not angry.
It was something quieter than anger, and somehow worse.
"You did this," Rachel said.
It wasn't a question.
My mother-in-law said nothing.
"You switched my daughter's bracelet so that woman —" Rachel nodded toward Diane — "could walk out of this hospital with her."
"I don't know what you're —"
"My daughter." Rachel's voice did not shake.
"You were going to let someone walk out of this hospital with my daughter."
The room was silent except for the sound of both babies breathing.
Then Diane lifted her face from her hands.
May you like
"Mom," she said.
"What did you do?"
