Chapter 5 - The Baby Born After the Disappearance
“No.”
I knew what Margaret was about to imply.
I refused it before she spoke.
“You think I’m Caroline’s daughter.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
That surprised me.
Then she pointed at the birth date.
The baby would now be thirty-five.
I was thirty-one.
Not me.
“Who?”
Ethan had gone completely still.
I looked at him.
“No.”
He was thirty-five.
Same age.
Margaret whispered:
“Ethan was born three weeks after the date on that file.”
My husband stared at his mother.
“You told me you gave birth to me.”
“I did.”
“Then why are we discussing this?”
Because Margaret believed Caroline’s baby had been brought into the same private maternity clinic where she delivered Ethan.
Robert arranged both admissions.
Two women.
Two newborns.
One man connecting them.
Margaret had suspected for decades that Robert switched something.
“Babies?”
“I don't know.”
Ethan laughed in disbelief.
“You don’t know if I’m your son?”
“I had complications. I was sedated for nearly two days.”
When Margaret woke, Robert placed a baby in her arms.
Ethan.
She never questioned him.
Until Ethan was four.
A pediatrician discovered his blood type was impossible for Margaret and Robert to produce together.
Margaret confronted Robert.
He claimed a laboratory error.
She secretly tested again.
Same result.
“Why didn't you leave?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because by then he was my child.”
That answer, at least, I understood.
“Did Robert know?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Margaret looked at Ethan.
“He said biology was the least dangerous part of the truth.”
Ethan sat down.
His wedding ring suddenly seemed too bright.
“Who are my parents?”
“We don't know yet.”
I looked at Caroline’s file.
If Ethan were Caroline’s baby, who was the father?
Robert?
That possibility made my stomach twist.
Then my mother shouted through the speaker:
“Robert was not Caroline’s baby’s father.”
Margaret grabbed the phone.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Who was?”
Mom hesitated.
“Ask Ethan what his hospital bracelet says.”
I looked at the band from last night.
Hospital name:
St. Vincent Medical Center.
Nothing unusual.
Then I turned it over.
Someone had written by hand:
B-17.
“What is B-17?”
Margaret went pale.
“That clinic closed thirty-four years ago.”
“What clinic?”
“Bennett Seventeen.”
Not a room number.
A file designation.
My mother whispered:
“Caroline was part of a confidential witness program involving seventeen pregnant women.”
Witnesses to what?
She refused to explain until we left the house.
Then Ethan suddenly remembered something.
“At the hospital last night…”
“What?”
“The doctor called me another name.”
My pulse accelerated.
“What name?”
“Daniel.”
Margaret dropped the phone.
I stared at her.
“Who is Daniel?”
Her lips trembled.
“My biological son.”
Silence.
Ethan whispered:
“You had another baby?”
“No.”
May you like
Margaret began crying.
“You were supposed to be Daniel.”
