Page 60 of The Other Mother
I grab hotel stationary from the bedside drawer andstart building a timeline in my careful handwriting. My journalism professor in college taught me to always work with physical notes alongside digital research. "Computers crash, Claire, but paper remembers everything." He would be impressed to know I'm using his investigative techniques to expose my own husband's crimes.
Rebecca Morrison is next. The records show a stillbirth on October 3rd, but her Facebook profile from that same week shows her posting photos of a healthy newborn baby boy. The comments are full of congratulations and heart emojis from friends who have no idea they're celebrating a lie. "He's perfect!" one comment reads. "You must be so relieved after all those complications."
My hands shake as I write Rebecca's name on my timeline. How many women are walking around right now, believing their happy endings, not knowing their children were stolen from other mothers' arms?
The third name stops me cold:Henderson.
Our neighbors. The ones with the perfect landscaped front yard and the twin boys who hate baths and whose screams I hear every night if their windows are open. Sarah Henderson, who brought us a casserole when we first brought Eva home, who always asked about Eva's sleeping schedule with that knowing smile of a fellow mother.
According to Adam's files, Sarah suffered three miscarriages between 2021 and 2023. Then, miraculously,she gave birth to twin boys in January 2024. But the bank records show two separate payments of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars each, made to an account linked to Ava Pierce on the same day the boys' births were registered.
I think about all those Sunday mornings, watching those little boys play while holding Eva in my arms. Were their biological mothers somewhere else, grieving children they thought were dead? Were Sarah and I both unknowing participants in the same horrible crime?
The scope of this thing is staggering. I count forty-seven names in Adam's files, spanning three years. Forty-seven families built on lies. Forty-seven mothers who went home with empty arms while other women celebrated stolen miracles.
Eva stirs in her drawer-crib, making those soft cooing sounds that usually melt my heart. Tonight they just make me feel sick with guilt. I lift my shirt and settle her against me, her tiny mouth finding what she needs immediately. The same instinct that got us into this mess at the hospital where this whole nightmare began.
I settle into the room's single chair and feed Eva, watching her dark eyes blink sleepily at me in the harsh light. She trusts me completely, this child who should belong to someone else but somehow, impossibly, feels like mine. Her tiny hand wraps around my finger while she nurses, and I have to swallow hard to keep from crying.
When she's finished, I burp her gently and settle herback in the makeshift crib. Then I return to my investigation, because stopping now would mean letting forty-six other families live with the same lie that's been poisoning mine.
I start calling numbers from the bank transfer records, using a voice I remember from my brief stint doing phone surveys in college. Professional but sympathetic, authoritative but not threatening.
"Hello, this is Claire from Coachella Valley Medical Center's billing department," I say when the first number connects. "We're conducting a routine audit of patient records from 2023, and I need to verify some information about your account."
Most people hang up immediately. A few listen long enough to realize I'm not actually from the hospital before disconnecting. But on my seventh call, a woman's voice cracks when I mention the date of her hospital stay.
"Teresa Valdez?" I ask gently.
"Yes." The word comes out like a sob.
"Mrs. Valdez, I'm actually not from the hospital's billing department. I'm a mother whose baby was involved in the same program as yours. I need to ask you about what happened on March 15th."
Silence stretches between us, filled only by the sound of her breathing and the distant hum of the motel's ice machine.
"They told me my baby died," she finally whispers. "But I held her. I held her for ten minutes, and she was breathing. I saw her little chest moving."
My throat tightens. "What happened after that?"
"A social worker came in. Ava Pierce. She said there had been complications, that the baby was suffering, that it would be cruel to prolong her pain. She gave me papers to sign, said it was for the burial arrangements. But I was so sedated I could barely see the words."
Ava Pierce. The name from Adam's files, the one who signed off on dozens of these "emergency placements."
"Did you ever see your baby's body?" I ask, though I already know the answer.
"No. They said it would be too traumatic. They said I should remember her as she was when she was alive." Teresa's voice breaks completely. "But she WAS alive. I know she was alive."
I close my eyes, thinking of my own foggy memories from Eva's birth. The sedation, the confusion, the papers I signed without reading. "Mrs. Valdez, I think your baby is alive. I think she's with another family who believes she was legally placed with them."
"You think?" Hope and terror war in her voice.
"I know. And I'm going to prove it."
After I hang up, I sit in the terrible silence of the motel room, staring at Eva's sleeping form. She's wearing the yellow onesie with tiny ducks that I bought her last week, back when I still thought she might be mine.
I return to my laptop and start cross-referencing the hospital records with obituary searches and birthannouncements in the local newspaper's online archives. The pattern emerges quickly, sickeningly clear: for every "died in childbirth" obituary, there's a corresponding birth announcement in the society pages within forty-eight hours.
Then I find the entry that makes my blood run cold.
