Page 61 of The Other Mother
Maria Santos, twenty years old. Emergency contact: Esperanza Santos (grandmother). The date matches the nurse's notes about the blue striped blanket baby. But there's no corresponding placement record in Adam's files. No bank transfer, no new family, no happy ending. The baby simply disappears from the paperwork after the fake death certificate.
I dial the number listed for Esperanza Santos, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"¿Sí?" An elderly woman's voice.
"Mrs. Santos? My name is Claire Matthews. I'm calling about your granddaughter Maria's baby."
"¿Quién es?" The suspicion in her voice is sharp as broken glass.
"I think your great-granddaughter might still be alive."
A sharp intake of breath, then rapid Spanish I can't understand. When she switches back to English, her voice is thick with tears.
"Mija, they told us the baby was too sick, that it was a blessing she didn't suffer. But Maria, she never got over it. She keeps asking why she couldn't hold her baby, why they took her away so fast."
"Where is Maria now?"
"She lives with me still. She's twenty-one now, but she still cries for her baby every night. She draws pictures of her, talks to her like she's still here." Mrs. Santos' voice drops to a whisper. "I think maybe she's going a little crazy from the grief."
Maria is absolutely right to grieve, because her baby isn't dead.
"Mrs. Santos, I'm going to find out what happened to your great-granddaughter. I promise you that."
"¿Por qué? Why do you care about our family?"
I look at Eva, sleeping peacefully in her drawer-crib, unaware that her entire existence is built on someone else's loss.
"Because I think I know who has her baby."
After I hang up, I spread all my notes across the motel's scratched table. Names, dates, bank transfers, phone numbers. A map of stolen children and grieving mothers and families who think they're living happily ever after.
Eva wakesup and looks at me with those dark eyes that suddenly make perfect sense. They're not my eyes or Adam's eyes. They're Mara's eyes, the same eyes I saw in the photo of the young woman who died believing her baby was safe with me.
I have three choices, and they're all terrible.
I can run. Take Eva and disappear into whatever life we can build with fake identities and constant fear. Let the network continue operating, let other mothers suffer what Mara suffered, let other families unknowingly participate in this horror.
I can return Eva. Try to find Mara's family, hand over the child I've raised for months, break both our hearts in service of some abstract concept of justice.
Or I can fight. Take down the entire network, risk everything, probably lose Eva anyway when the authorities get involved, but maybe save other children from the same fate.
My phone rings, jarring me from my thoughts. The number isn't in my contacts.
"Is this Claire Matthews?" The voice is young, female, shaky but determined.
"Yes."
"This is Maria Santos. My grandmother said you called about my baby. The one they said died."
My heart stops. Then pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat.
"Maria."
"I know she's alive. And I think you might know where she is."
I look at Eva, sleeping innocently in her makeshift crib, then at the papers spread across the table.
And I'm no longer alone in this fight.
