Page 58 of The Other Mother
"Claire," he starts, but I hold up my hand.
"Sit down."
He does, slowly, his eyes never leaving the papers. I watch him recognize each document as his gaze moves across the table. The consent forms. The bank transfers. The death certificate.
"You forged my signature," I say quietly.
Adam doesn’t answer at first. His jaw flexes. He glances at the consent form like it's a gun on the table.
“I didn’t ... forge it myself,” he says finally. “I pushed it through. Legal already had a protocol—an emergency reassignment system for high-risk situations. You ticked every box, Claire. Depression history. Prior loss. No extended family.”
He hesitates, then meets my eyes.
“I gave them a nudge. I made it happen faster. I knew if we waited ... if you saw her ... if you knew she was gone?—”
I stare at him, cold blooming through my chest.
“So you prepped a form in my name before I ever held her?”
“You didn’t lose just any baby, Claire. You lost our baby. A daughter. She was born stillborn during the emergency c-section. The doctors didn’t have any good answers. Don’t you remember what happened before? You stopped speaking for days. You forgot your own name. I thought … I thought this time would be worse.”
He opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. "She died, Claire. Our baby died, and you were breaking apart. I couldn't let you live through that again. Not after what happened with Marcus."
The mention of my ex-boyfriend, the pregnancy I lost years ago, hits me like a slap. "This has nothing to do with Marcus."
"Doesn't it? You were hospitalized after that miscarriage. Depression, they called it. Breakdown. I didn’t want to watch you go through that again, not when there was another option."
"Another option? You mean stealing someone else's child?"
"I mean giving you the chance to be the mother you always wanted to be. And giving Eva a loving home instead of whatever would have happened to her otherwise."
I stare at him across the table, this man I married, this man I thought I knew. "You don't get to make that choice for me. Or for Mara. Or for Eva."
"Mara was alone. No family, no support system. She couldn't have provided for a child anyway."
"That wasn't your decision to make."
Adam leans forward, desperation creeping into his voice. "Look at her, Claire. Look at Eva. She's happy. She's healthy. She loves you. Isn't that worth something?"
I look toward the bassinet where Eva is asleep peacefully, unaware that her entire world is built on a lie. "She's not the point, Adam. The point is what you took from me. The right to choose. The right to grieve. The right to know the truth about my own life."
"I did itfor you."
"You did ittome."
The distinction hangs between us. Adam slumps in his chair, suddenly looking older than his thirty-six years.
"What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? I am. But I'm not sorry Eva is ours. I'm not sorry you didn't have to suffer."
"But I did suffer," I tell him. "Every day, feeling like something was wrong, like I was losing my mind. Every night, wondering why she didn't feel like mine. You let me think I was crazy instead of telling me the truth."
"Because I was protecting you."
"You were protectingyourself."
We sit in silence for a long moment. Eva stirs in her bassinet but doesn't wake. Outside, a neighbor's dog barks at something. The ice maker in our refrigerator rumbles to life.
Normal sounds in our abnormal life.
