Chapter 4 - Two Babies
Mom finally agreed to speak.
Not to me.
To police.
I sat behind glass and watched her unravel without raising her voice.
Officer Reyes placed the laboratory report in front of her.
“Did you witness this test?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Helen folded her hands.
“Because there were concerns.”
“What concerns?”
She looked toward the mirrored window.
Toward me.
“Two girls were born that morning.”
My heartbeat changed.
“What?” I whispered.
Vanessa had been pregnant too.
I knew that.
But she supposedly miscarried late in pregnancy.
At least, that was what I had been told.
I remembered visiting her afterward.
Curtains closed.
Mom answering every question.
Vanessa refusing to see anyone.
Helen continued:
“Rachel went into emergency surgery. Vanessa delivered shortly afterward.”
Officer Reyes asked:
“Two infants?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to Vanessa’s child?”
My mother’s face tightened.
“She was told the baby died.”
I stood so fast my chair scraped backward.
The officer beside me asked me to sit.
I couldn’t.
Mom continued.
“But the infant didn’t die.”
Vanessa’s baby survived.
Then how had she become mine?
Helen claimed a hospital identification error occurred during an emergency evacuation after an electrical fire in the maternity wing.
Two newborn girls were moved.
Bracelets became confused.
Daniel and I were given the wrong infant.
Vanessa’s child.
Emma.
“What about Rachel’s biological daughter?” Reyes asked.
Mom stopped answering.
My stomach turned.
Officer Reyes repeated:
“Where is Rachel’s baby?”
Helen whispered:
“Alive.”
I covered my mouth.
“Where?”
Mom looked toward the mirror again.
Then said:
“Lily.”
I nearly collapsed.
My niece.
Vanessa’s six-year-old daughter?
The ages didn’t match.
Then Helen admitted another lie.
Lily was not six.
She was four years and eight months old.
Vanessa and my mother had altered her birth date on school and family records using another relative’s documentation.
Impossible.
Insane.
Yet pieces suddenly aligned.
Lily was small for “six.”
She had entered kindergarten late.
Her official birthday celebrations always occurred during summer, though Vanessa once joked the date was “flexible.”
Police stopped the interview.
This was no longer only an assault investigation.
Records fraud.
Medical concealment.
Potential child identity manipulation.
Then my mother whispered something before the recording ended.
“We were going to fix it.”
Reyes stopped.
“Fix what?”
“The girls.”
“How?”
“When they were older.”
“What does that mean?”
Helen closed her eyes.
“Rachel wasn’t supposed to become attached.”
A sound escaped me.
Not a cry.
Something uglier.
Four years.
Bedtime stories.
First steps.
Fevers.
“Attached?”
Officer Reyes stared at her.
“You knowingly allowed two women to raise the wrong children?”
Helen’s face twisted.
“It was complicated.”
Then she said something that changed everything again.
“The hospital didn’t switch them.”
Reyes froze.
“What?”
May you like
Helen whispered:
“I did.”
