Page 57 of The Other Mother
I think about all the times he dismissed my concerns, called me paranoid, suggested I needed medication. All the times he made me doubt my own instincts when my instincts were exactly right.
"You decided she was mine," I whisper to the empty room.
Eva cries from her nursery, and I realize I've been sitting here for over an hour. I gather the printed documents, stuff them into a manila folder, and hide it in my underwear drawer. Then I go to my daughter. She is my daughter, isn't she? I've fed her, changed her, sung to her, loved her for almost two months. Biology doesn't erase that.
But as I lift her from the crib, I can't stop thinking about Mara. How she must have felt waking up to empty arms, being told her baby was dead.
Eva stops crying the moment I pick her up. She looks at me with those dark eyes that don't quite look like mine, that never have, no matter how hard I've tried to convince myself otherwise.
"He chose us for each other," I tell her softly. "But that doesn't make it right.”
I carry her to the rocking chair by the window and settle us both down. My nipples are still raw and tender from the last feeding, the cracked skin stinging as Eva latches on hungrily. I wince but don't pull away—this pain feels like penance somehow, a small suffering for the enormous wrong I've unknowingly been part of. The milk flows despite everything, my body responding to her need even as my mind reels with the truth Adam kept from us both. I watch her tiny fist curl against my chest, so trusting, so innocent of the deception that brought her to me.
While Eva nurses, I reach for my phone with my free hand and call the number on one of the bank transfer receipts. It rings four times before a woman answers.
“June, this is Claire Matthews. We met a few days ago."
Silence. Then: "I told you everything I could tell you."
"Did my husband pay you to switch my baby?” I ask.
Another long pause. "Mrs. Matthews, I think you should speak to a lawyer."
"I'm speaking to you. Please. I just need to know if my husband was involved in taking Mara's child."
June's voice drops to barely above a whisper. "Your husband saved your life. The other baby, your biological daughter ... there were complications. She didn't make it. The trauma would have destroyed you."
"So you took someone else's child to fix me?"
"We gave you a chance to be a mother. And we gave that baby a loving home instead of the foster system. Mara Vasquez had no support, no family. She was alone."
"She wasn't alone. She had her daughter."
"Not anymore," June says, and hangs up.
I set down the phone and look at Eva, who's finished her bottle and is making those soft cooing sounds that usually melt my heart. Today they just make me sad.
Adam will be home in two hours. When he walks through that door, everything between us will change. There's no going back from what I know now, no pretending this marriage can survive this betrayal.
But as I look at Eva, I realize something that surprises me. I'm not even sure I want to give her back, if that's even possible now. She's been mine for two months. She knows my voice, my smell, my heartbeat.
And I know hers.
I carry her to the living room and settle into the rocking chair Adam bought when we first found out I was pregnant. The chair where I've spent countless hours feeding her, comforting her, falling in love with her despite everything.
"Your daddy made a terrible choice," I whisper against her soft hair. "But you're innocent in all this. We both are."
Eva yawns and closes her eyes, trusting me completely. It breaks my heart and strengthens my resolve at the same time.
I rock her until she falls asleep, then lay her gently inher bassinet. While she naps, I pack a bag. It’s not much, just enough clothes for a few days, diapers, and a manila folder full of evidence.
By the time Adam pulls into the driveway, I'm ready.
He walks through the door with his golf clubs and that satisfied smile he always wears after a good game. "Hey, babe. How was your morning?"
I'm sitting at the kitchen table, the printed documents spread out in front of me like tarot cards predicting our doom.
His smile dies when he sees them.
