Page 62 of The Other Mother
But I'm also no longer in control of what happens next.
30
THE CHOICE
Desert View Cemetery at midnight looks like something out of a scary movie. The moon is thin, casting skeletal shadows through the palm trees that line the entrance. I park my car (a rental so that Adam can’t find me) between two weathered headstones and sit for a moment. Eva is sleeping against my chest in the baby carrier. Her warm weight is the only thing keeping me grounded as I stare out at acres of marble and granite monuments to people who died with their secrets intact.
I should have left her at the motel. Should have paid the night clerk an extra fifty dollars to keep an eye on her while I came here alone. But the thought of leaving Eva with a stranger, even for an hour, makes my chest tight with panic. After everything I've learned about babies being stolen, switched, sold like commodities, I can't let her out of my sight.
The cemetery's wrought iron gates stand open, but there's something ominous about the gap between them, like a mouth waiting to swallow me whole. I've always hated cemeteries since my father's funeral when I was twelve. The way the freshly turned earth smelled like secrets, the way the mourners whispered like they were afraid to wake the dead. Tonight feels worse because I'm not here to mourn someone who's gone. I'm here to meet someone who's been living with a ghost.
Eva stirs as I walk deeper into the cemetery, following the directions Maria gave me over the phone. "Third row from the back, near the angel with broken wings." My footsteps crunch on gravel that sounds too loud in the desert silence. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howls, and I pull Eva closer.
I find Mara's grave exactly where Maria said it would be. The headstone is simple black granite with gold lettering: "Mara Elena Vasquez, Beloved Daughter, 1998-2024." Below that, in smaller script: "She fought for what was right." Someone has left fresh white roses at the base, their petals ghostly in the dim light.
"You came."
I turn and see a girl emerging from behind a tall monument topped with a weeping angel. Maria Santos looks exactly like I imagined from her voice, small and fierce, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and eyes that have seen too much. She's wearing jeans and a black hoodie, and she moves with the careful precision of someone who's learned not to trust the world.
"You don’t look twenty," I say, adjusting Eva's weight against my chest.
"Grief ages you." Maria's gaze is fixed on Eva with an intensity that makes me want to step backwards. "She looks like Mara."
I don’t know what to say to that.
"She's my god-daughter to be.” The words come out flat, matter-of-fact, but I hear the pain underneath. "My best friend died trying to get her back."
We stand there for a moment, two women on opposite sides of an impossible equation. I got to take Eva home from the hospital while Mara went home with empty arms. I got two months of midnight feedings and first smiles while Mara got a grave.
"You said you had evidence," I say finally.
Maria nods and pulls a small device from her pocket. "USB drive, a copy of course. I’ve been recording phone calls between hospital staff for eight months. My grandmother hired a private investigator with her social security money. We know about Ava Pierce, about the auctions, about all of it."
She hands me the drive, and I turn it over in my palm. Such a small thing to contain so much horror.
"The network spans three hospitals," Maria continues. "Coachella Valley Medical, Desert Springs Regional, and Palm Desert General. Ava Pierce coordinates between all of them. She runs actual auctions where couples bid on babies based on photos and genetic profiles."
My stomach turns. "They treated the babies like livestock."
"Worse. Livestock has regulations." Maria's voice is bitter. "My baby was sold to international buyers for half a million dollars. They told my grandmother she died of complications, but I have recordings of Pierce arranging the sale."
She shows me her phone, scrolls to a photo that makes my blood freeze. It's Eva as a newborn, still red and wrinkled, lying in a hospital bassinet with a blue wristband around her tiny ankle.
"Where did you get this?"
"Mara's apartment. She'd been tracking Eva, building a case. She knew where Eva was, knew who had her, but she was trying to do it legally. She wanted to expose the whole network, not just get one baby back."
I stare at the photo, remembering nothing from those first few hours after Eva's birth. The sedatives Adam agreed to, the confusion, the paperwork I signed without reading. Mara was somewhere in that same hospital, being told her baby was dead while I was being handed the child she'd carried for nine months.
"My friend was going to save all of us," Maria says softly. "Now it's up to you."
She leads me to Mara's headstone and kneels beside it, running her fingers along the base until I hear a soft click. A section of the marble backing swings open like a door, revealing a hidden compartment. Inside is a metalbox about the size of a jewelry case, sealed with duct tape.
"She hid this here two days before she died," Maria explains. "Told me if anything happened to her, I should give it to the woman raising Eva. She knew it was you."
I open the box with shaking hands. Inside are documents, photos, and a letter with my name written on the envelope in careful cursive handwriting.
The letter is brief:
