Chapter 1 - Give Me My Baby
Emma had been a mother for less than six hours when Eleanor tried to take her daughter away.
She was sitting upright in the hospital bed, exhausted and sore, Sophie sleeping against her chest beneath a white swaddle, when the door opened.
Eleanor entered first.
Richard followed.
Neither congratulated her.
Neither asked how she felt.
Eleanor walked directly to the bed.
“Eleanor?”
The older woman lunged.
Before Emma understood what was happening, Sophie was gone from her arms.
“GIVE ME MY BABY!”
Emma threw herself forward.
Richard caught her from behind, locking both hands around her upper arms and forcing her against the mattress.
Emma screamed.
She twisted.
Kicked against the sheets.
Reached desperately toward Eleanor.
Eleanor held Sophie securely against her chest and hurried toward the door.
Emma’s hand swept across the bedside table.
Her fingers found the flower vase.
She swung.
CRASH.
The vase shattered against the side of Richard’s head.
He released her and dropped to his knees, stunned but conscious.
Emma scrambled from bed.
Her legs nearly collapsed beneath her.
She caught the bedrail.
Then ran.
She reached Eleanor at the doorway and grabbed her shoulder.
“She’s coming with us!” Eleanor snapped.
Emma slid both hands beneath Sophie.
For one terrifying second, neither woman moved.
Then Eleanor released rather than risk dropping the newborn.
Emma pulled Sophie against her chest and backed into the corridor.
“DON’T TOUCH HER AGAIN.”
Nurses and hospital security rushed toward them.
A staff member stepped between Emma and Eleanor.
“Emma... she has legal guardianship.”
Everything stopped.
“What?”
The woman raised a document.
Temporary Guardianship Form.
Emma’s name.
Sophie’s name.
Eleanor designated temporary guardian.
And at bottom—
Emma’s signature.
“I NEVER SIGNED THAT.”
The staff member looked again.
Eleanor’s confidence faltered.
Emma stared at handwriting.
The capital E.
The unusual backward loop in the final A.
She had seen both hundreds of times.
“But I know who did.”
Richard and Eleanor exchanged a terrified glance.
Emma saw it.
She looked back at signature.
There was only one person she knew who formed her name that way.
Someone who had signed Emma’s birthday cards when Emma was a child.
Someone who had filled out her school forms.
Someone who had been dead for eleven years.
Her mother.
Margaret Hale.
Emma whispered:
May you like
“That’s my mother’s handwriting.”
And suddenly nobody in the corridor was looking at Eleanor anymore.
