Page 1 of The Other Mother
PROLOGUE: TWO WEEKS BEFORE EVA IS BORN
The desert air still feels like a novelty. Dry heat instead of humidity. Sun that doesn’t just warm, but scorches. I stand on the back patio with one hand resting on my belly, watching the neighbor’s flag ripple in the windless air.
Inside, the house smells like lemon cleaner and optimism. Adam spent the morning putting together the crib, grumbling only a little. Now it sits in the corner of the nursery perfectly centered under the window, exactly how I pictured it. White wood. Pale yellow walls. The mattress still wrapped in plastic, like it’s waiting for permission to be real.
We’re not ready, not really, but we’ve done the things people tell you to do when you're about to become parents. We took the hospital tour. I bought nipple cream and a copy ofBaby 411. Adam installed the car seat base, swearing the entire time because the latch systemmade no sense and the manual might as well have been written in Sanskrit.
"You’re going to be an amazing mom," he said afterward, wiping sweat from his brow. "You’ve read every book. I haven’t even read theDad HacksPDF I downloaded."
"That’s because it’s 90% diaper jokes," I told him, and he laughed.
He’s been different here. Softer, maybe. Still driven, still detail-obsessed, but less… brittle. The Southern California desert version of Adam is calmer, or maybe I just want him to be. A fresh start in a new place. That was the idea.
I head back inside where my phone buzzes with a text from a friend and a photo of her daughter covered in spaghetti sauce captionedyour future. I laugh out loud, a real one, and text back:Bring it on.
The baby kicks; a firm, surprising thud. I press my palm against the movement like I can high-five her back.
I sit at the kitchen table and open my laptop. There’s a draft of a short story I’ve been ignoring for weeks, but today I type two full sentences before stopping. They're not brilliant, but they sound like me. Like a version of me I thought might be gone forever.
Before I close the lid I click over to the hospital website and double-check our preregistration. Room request: private. Birth plan: on file. No complications noted.
My eyes linger on the screen. There's a photo of thematernity wing. The same one we toured last month. Fluorescent lighting, beige walls, nurses smiling with too many teeth. One of the doors in the background is partially open. I didn’t notice it before, but it’s marked with a small red tag. A tiny thing. Easy to miss.
I close the laptop.
From the nursery, Adam calls out: "Claire, what do you think? Safari theme or stars?"
"Stars," I say, already on my feet. "Definitely stars."
Because right now, everything still feels like it’s falling into place.
Not apart.
1
I DIDN'T HEAR HIM COME IN
The silence wakes me.
Not the crying. Not the soft grunts and shuffles that usually leak through the baby monitor like static from another world. Complete, suffocating silence.
I'm curled on the living room couch, still wearing yesterday's nursing tank that smells like sour milk and desperation. The throw pillow beneath my cheek is damp with drool. My phone screen shows 6:47 PM, which means I've been unconscious for three hours. Three hours without hearing from Eva.
My C-section scar pulls tight as I sit up too fast, sending a sharp reminder through my abdomen. The pain grounds me for half a second before panic floods in.
The monitor on the coffee table stares back at me with its blank green eye. No sound. No movement indicator. Nothing.
I stumble toward the hallway, my bare feet slappingagainst the cold tile Adam insisted we install because it's "easy to clean." Everything in this house is easy to clean, easy to maintain, easy to control. Unlike me.
The nursery door is cracked open exactly how I left it. The desert sunset bleeds orange light through the blackout curtains I never quite close all the way because I need to see her breathing.
But the crib is empty.
The yellow giraffe mobile hangs motionless above rumpled sheets. The white noise machine hums its mechanical ocean sounds. My breast milk bags are still lined up in military precision on the changing table, but Eva is gone.
My throat closes. The sound that comes out isn't quite a scream, more like air being let out of something punctured.
"She's fine, Claire."
