Page 31 of The Other Mother
"You took everything from me."
The voice is quiet, conversational almost, but it hits me like a physical blow. I turn around slowly, still holding Eva's carrier.
Mara is standing about ten feet away, her arms hanging at her sides. In the harsh afternoon light, she looks even thinner than she did inside. Her cheekbones are sharp enough to cut glass, and there are dark circles under her eyes that makeup couldn't hide even if she bothered to wear any.
"What are you talking about?" My voice comes out as barely a whisper.
She takes a step closer. "I see it in your eyes. You know something's wrong. You just won't admit it."
I want to deny it, to tell her she's crazy, to get in my car and drive away and never come back to this place. But the words stick in my throat because she's right. I do know something's wrong.
"You don't even know what you did," Mara continues, and now her voice is getting stronger, more urgent. "But you did it. You took her from me, and you don't even remember doing it.”
She takes another step forward. Her voice drops to a whisper.
“You were never supposed to be the mother. I was.”
A pause.
“You were the other mother.”
The words hit deeper than any scream could. It doesn’t sound like an accusation. It sounds like a fact.
The parking lot starts to spin around me. I can feel my knees wanting to buckle, can taste bile in the back of my throat. Eva makes a soft sound in her carrier, and I look down at her perfect little face, her rosebud mouth, her dark eyes that seem too knowing for a six-week-old baby.
For one wild moment, I think about DNA tests. I could order one online, swab Eva's cheek while she's sleeping, send it off to some lab and get definitive proof that she's mine. The thought is so clear, so logical, that I almost laugh with relief.
But then reality crashes back in. What would I tell Adam when the kit arrived? How would I explain taking samples without his knowledge? And what if the test came back positive. What if Eva really is mine and I'm just losing my mind? Then I'd be the crazy woman who DNA tested her own baby because she couldn't trust her own maternal instincts.
Worse, what if it came back negative? What would that make me? A kidnapper? A victim? I can't even begin to process what that would mean.
"I didn't ... " I start to say, but the words die because I can't finish the sentence. I can't say "I didn't do anything" because what if I did? What if there are hours, days even,that I've forgotten? What if the fog I've been living in since Eva was born isn't just sleep deprivation and hormones but something much worse?
Mara stares at me for another long moment, and I see something in her expression that terrifies me more than anger or accusations ever could. I see pity.
Then she turns and walks away, her footsteps echoing off the concrete until she disappears around the corner of the building.
I stand there in the suffocating heat, holding Eva's carrier with hands that won't stop shaking. Around me, the desert presses in from all sides. There are endless brown hills dotted with scrub brush and cacti, a landscape that looks like the surface of Mars. Nothing green, nothing soft, nothing forgiving.
I think about the pacifier hidden in my sock drawer. About the hospital bracelet numbers that don't match. About the blank spaces in my memory where important moments should be. About the way Adam's jaw tightens when I ask questions about Eva's birth.
I get in the car and buckle Eva into her seat, my movements mechanical and disconnected. In the rearview mirror, I can see her watching me with those dark, serious eyes. She doesn't cry, doesn't fuss. She just watches, like she's waiting for something.
As I pull out of the parking lot, the question that's been circling in my brain for weeks finally crystallizes:
If I didn't do anything wrong, why do I feel like I did?
17
ADAM
We do not go inside. We never do. The envelope is warm from my hand by the time he takes it.
“Last time,” I say.
He does not answer. He never promises anything I can hold him to.
The bar sign buzzes in red. Two bulbs out. The lot smells like fryer oil and old beer. A swamp cooler rattles on the roof. People laugh on the other side of the wall where everything is bright and loud and ordinary.
