Page 23 of The Other Mother
I freeze in the rocking chair, my breath caught in my throat.
"Have you ever smiled like that before?" I whisper.
The question hangs in the air between us. I should know the answer. I should remember every smile, every expression, every tiny milestone. I'm her mother. I should have a catalog of these moments burned into my memory.
But I don't know. I can't remember if she's smiled like this before, or if this is the first time, or if maybe she's been smiling like this all along and I just haven't been paying attention.
The uncertainty terrifies me more than anything else that's happened. A mother should know her own baby's expressions. A mother should recognize her child's cries, should be able to distinguish between hunger and tiredness and discomfort with absolute certainty.
I hold Eva close, pressing my face against the soft fuzz of her hair, trying to memorize her weight, her warmth, her scent. I need these physical sensations to anchor me to the truth, to prove to myself that she's real and mine and exactly where she belongs.
But I can't stop thinking about that voice in the hallway. The clipboard with my signature that I didn't remember writing. The woman in scrubs wheeling awaya bassinet while someone screamed that it was their baby.
"It's all taken care of now."
The words echo in my mind as I rock Eva back to sleep, her breathing gradually slowing and deepening against my chest. What was taken care of? What needed to be arranged or fixed or managed?
And why can't I remember signing anything?
Eva's smile fades as she drifts off, her face returning to the peaceful blankness of infant sleep. I sit in the dark nursery for a long time after she settles, holding her and trying to separate dream from memory, fiction from reality.
But the boundaries keep blurring, and I'm no longer sure there's a difference between them.
12
THE SIGNATURE
Darkness. Complete and suffocating, like being buried alive.
The first thing I notice is the beeping. Steady and electronic, the sound of machines monitoring life. Then the sensation of movement, wheels rolling across smooth linoleum, the slight vibration traveling up through whatever I'm lying on.
I'm on a gurney. My body feels heavy, disconnected, like it belongs to someone else. When I try to lift my head, it lolls to one side, muscles refusing to obey. Fluorescent ceiling lights pass overhead in sequence, each one creating a brief flash of white behind my eyelids. They flicker as they pass, creating a strobe effect that makes everything feel surreal.
My arms are strapped down. Thick canvas restraints across my wrists, the kind they use to keep patients from pulling out IVs or fighting the medical staff. Therealization should terrify me, but my emotions feel muffled, wrapped in cotton.
My vision blurs and refocuses, blurs again. Voices swirl around me, not yelling but urgent. Calm. Coercive. The tone people use when they're trying to convince you that something terrible is actually for your own good.
"You signed it, Claire." A woman's voice, professional and soothing. "You said yes. You understood what would happen."
I try to respond, to ask what I signed, but my mouth won't move. My tongue feels thick and useless, like I've been given too much anesthesia. The words are trapped inside my head, screaming silently against my skull.
"It's all for the best. You were very brave."
A clipboard flashes across my vision, white paper with black text that refuses to focus.
I can make out a name at the top:C. Matthews. My name.
A pen appears in my limp hand, guided by someone else's fingers wrapped around mine. I watch my own handwriting form on the page, letters spelling out words I can't read, creating a signature that looks like mine but doesn't feel like mine.
The stylus moves across the paper with mechanical precision, forming loops and curves that match what I've written thousands of times before. But there's no intention behind it. It's like someone else is doing it.
"We didn't trick you. You agreed."
The voice is gentle and chilling, the tone a mothermight use to comfort a child who's afraid of getting a shot. Reassuring but final, brooking no argument.
My eyes flutter, and everything goes in and out of focus. At the edge of my peripheral vision, I catch a glimpse of movement. A bassinet being rolled away in the opposite direction, its wheels squeaking slightly on the polished floor.
A woman screams somewhere behind me, the sound raw and desperate and heartbreakingly familiar. "That's my baby! You can't take her!"
