Page 67 of The Other Mother
"Evaismy baby," Maria finally looks at me, and her young face is hard with determination. "She was my best friend’s child who is now dead. You stole my Goddaughter. I'm just correcting the balance."
The safe house suddenly doesn't feel safe anymore. It feels like another kind of trap, dressed up in comfortable furniture and the smell of home cooking.
"This isn't about justice," I say, standing up with Eva. "This is about revenge."
"Sometimes they're the same thing," Linda says calmly. "You can stay here with us, Claire. Continue to see Eva. She needs her real family, but she also needs the woman who's loved her for two months. We can share her."
Share her? I cling tighter to her.
I look around the room at these women who've built their own version of justice from the ashes of their grief. They're not evil. They're trauma survivors trying to healin the only way they know how. But their solution isn't what Eva needs.
Eva starts to fuss, making the soft complaining sounds that mean she's getting hungry. Without thinking, I start humming the lullaby I've sung to her every night for two months. The melody my own mother sang to me when I was small, before cancer took her voice away. Eva immediately settles, her body relaxing against mine.
In that moment, I understand something that transcends genetics and legal documents. Eva knows me. Not because we share DNA, but because I'm the one who's been there for every feeding, every diaper change, every midnight cry. I'm the voice that soothes her fears and the arms that hold her safe.
"She knows me," I say quietly. "She needs me. Biology didn't make me her mother. Love did. And I won't let anyone take that away from her again."
The room grows tense, and I realize I've crossed a line. These women see me as just another privileged person who got what she wanted at their expense. They're not entirely wrong, but they're not entirely right either.
"I understand why you hate me," I continue. "But Eva didn't choose this. She didn't ask to be stolen from one mother and given to another. All she knows is that I'm her mama, and taking her away from me now would traumatize her just as much as what was done to all of you."
Linda stands up, and I can see her calculating something behind her eyes. "Maybe you should sleep on it. It's late, and we're all emotional. Things might look different in the morning."
She shows me to a small bedroom with a crib already set up. Eva and I settle in, but I don't undress. Something about this place, these women, the way they keep watching Eva like she's a prize they're waiting to claim, sets my teeth on edge.
I wait until the house grows quiet, until I hear the last footsteps in the hallway and the last door closing. Then I gather Eva and our few belongings and creep toward the front door.
But as I step onto the porch, headlights blaze across the clearing. Adam's white F-150 pulls into the driveway, followed by two police cars and a Child Protective Services van.
"I told you, Claire," Adam calls out as he steps from his truck. "I'll always find you. And I brought backup."
I turn to run back into the house, but Linda is standing in the doorway behind me.
32
THE RECKONING
The desert air burns my lungs as I clutch Eva tighter against my chest, her small body trembling in the chaos swirling around us. The gravel in the driveway makes a loud crunching sound and my heart jumps into my throat.
"Claire's been kidnapped by these women," Adam announces to the police officers flanking him, his voice carrying that smooth authority I once found so attractive. "She's suffering from postpartum psychosis and can't make rational decisions about our daughter's safety."
The words hit me like physical blows. Even now, after everything, he's spinning the narrative. Making me the unstable one while he plays the concerned husband. The CPS worker, a thin woman with kind eyes and a clipboard that might as well be a weapon, scribbles notes as she studies me. I can practically see her mentalchecklist: disheveled appearance, no legal documentation, surrounded by strangers in the middle of nowhere.
"That's my best friend’s baby!" Maria's voice cracks as she steps forward from behind me, the other safe house mothers forming a protective wall at my back. "These people stole her from our family!"
Eva's cries pierce the desert silence, her tiny fists grabbing at my shirt as voices rise around us. The sound tears through me because I know exactly what she's feeling. She’s overwhelmed, scared and unable to understand why the people who should protect her are the source of all this noise and fear.
"Everyone needs to calm down," Linda Dearborn says, stepping between Adam and Maria with her hands raised. Her voice carries decades of experience negotiating impossible situations, but I can see the sweat beading on her forehead despite the desert chill. "This child's welfare is what matters here."
The police officers exchange glances. One speaks into his radio while the other keeps his hand resting on his belt. They don't know who to believe, and honestly, I don't blame them. Adam looks like the concerned father in his pressed khakis and button-down shirt. Maria looks like a grieving mother fighting for her friend’s child. The other women look like exactly what they are – desperate mothers who've been through hell.
And me? I look like someone who's been living in hiding for weeks.
"Sir, we're going to need to see some documentation," the older officer says to Adam. "Birth certificate, custody papers, anything that proves your legal relationship to the child."
Adam reaches into his jacket pocket with confidence, producing a manila folder. “Here you go. Everything’s in order."
My stomach lurches as I watch him hand over the forged documents. The same papers that started this nightmare, now being presented as gospel truth to law enforcement. The CPS worker examines them with professional thoroughness while Eva continues to wail in my arms.
