Page 59 of The Other Mother
"What happens now?" Adam asks finally.
I stand up and gather the documents, sliding them back into the manila folder. "Now you have to live with what you've done. And I have to figure out how to live with what you took from me."
"Claire, please. We can work through this. We can get counseling, we can?—"
"We can't get back my daughter. The one who died. We can't undo what was done to Mara. And we can't pretend this marriage means anything when it's built on lies."
I pick up Eva's diaper bag and sling it over my shoulder. Adam notices and his face goes pale.
"Where are you going?"
"Away. I need to think."
"You can't take her. Claire, you can't just?—"
"Watch me."
I lift Eva from her bassinet. She wakes briefly, blinks at me with those dark eyes, then settles against my shoulder. She trusts me completely, this child who should have been someone else's but is mine now.
Adam stands up. "This is kidnapping. You know that, right? Legally, if you take her without permission?—"
"Whose permission? Yours? The hospital that falsified records? The state that doesn't even know she exists under a different name?"
I walk toward the door, Eva warm and solid in my arms. Adam follows but doesn't try to stop me.
"How long?" he asks.
I pause with my hand on the doorknob. "I don't know."
"Claire, I love you. I love both of you. Everything I did, I did because I love you."
I turn to look at him one last time. This man who promised to honor me, to protect me, to be honest with me. This man who decided that love meant taking away my choices.
"I know you do," I tell him. "But love without truth isn't love at all."
I buckle Eva into her car seat and drive away from the house, away from the life Adam built for us on someone else's grief. In the rearview mirror, I see him standing in the doorway, watching us disappear.
The desert highway stretches ahead, empty and vast. Eva sleeps in the backseat, unaware that we're running toward an uncertain future.
But as I drive, I realize something that should terrify me but doesn't. For the first time in months, I don't feel crazy. I don't feel lost.
I feel like I finally know exactly what I'm doing.
29
THE NETWORK
The Sunset Motel lives up to its name in the worst possible way. Everything here is the color of dying light, faded orange carpet with cigarette burns like tiny black wounds, mustard-yellow curtains that can't quite block out the parking lot's neon vacancy sign, and walls painted a sickly beige. I've been staring at these walls for six hours now, and they're starting to feel like they're closing in. I came here because it was the only place that allowed me to pay cash. If I had stayed at the Westin, Adam could call the credit card company and find out where I am and I need him tonotknow where I am right now.
Eva sleeps in the makeshift crib I've created from the motel dresser's bottom drawer, lined with every towel the housekeeping cart could spare. She looks so small in there, so vulnerable, her tiny fist curled against her cheek the way she always does when she dreams. Therise and fall of her chest is the only thing keeping me sane in this fluorescent-lit nightmare.
My phone buzzes against the scratched particle board table for the fifteenth time in the last hour. Adam's name flashes on the screen, followed by another text preview I don't bother to read. I flip it face down and return to the manila folder.
The documents are organized now, sorted by date, cross-referenced by the bank account numbers I found. My mother always said I had a mind for details, back when she was proud of my English degree instead of disappointed I wasn't using it. "You see patterns other people miss, Claire," she used to tell me when I'd solve the Sunday crossword puzzle in record time. If only she could see me now, using those same skills to unravel my husband's crimes.
The motel's WiFi password is taped to the desk lamp: "sunset123." Simple, like everything else in this place. I open my laptop and start typing names into search engines, cross-referencing them with birth announcements, obituaries, social media profiles. The digital detective work feels natural, almost soothing. It reminds me of doing research back in college and for a while there, I lose myself in the search.
The first name on my list is Caroline McNey. According to Adam's files, she received an infant on September 15th, 2023, the same day the hospital recorded a stillbirth under her name.
