Chapter 6 - MY OWN BIRTH
I laughed.
That was my first reaction.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes the mind rejects terror by pretending it has misunderstood the language.
“No.”
Detective Alvarez didn’t move.
“The bracelet has your name.”
“Exactly. My name.”
“Yes.”
“That proves I was born there.”
“It proves a hospital bracelet bearing your name was stored with evidence connected to two suspicious infant cases.”
“My mother has pictures of me pregnant inside her.”
“Do you remember seeing them?”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Of course I had.
Hadn’t I?
There was a photograph of Mom standing near a Christmas tree.
Her stomach round.
Another at Aunt Celia’s backyard.
One hand against her lower back.
Except suddenly I couldn’t remember whether anyone had ever told me which pregnancy those photographs showed.
Maybe I had decided they were me.
Children fill in gaps without knowing they are gaps.
“My birth certificate lists Carol and George.”
“So did Ryan’s list them.”
That hurt.
Lydia reached across the table.
“Hannah.”
I stood.
“No.”
“Hannah—”
“No.”
I walked to the door.
Alvarez didn’t stop me.
“Hannah, we don’t have evidence that you were abducted.”
I turned.
“Then why tell me?”
“Because if we test evidence without telling you, and you find out later, you’ll rightly believe we hid something.”
I pressed my hand against my forehead.
“What do you want?”
“A voluntary DNA sample.”
My stomach twisted.
“To test against my parents?”
“Yes.”
“They’re definitely Ryan’s adoptive parents.”
“We confirmed that. But we don’t have your original maternity records yet.”
“Why not?”
“Some were damaged in a flood in 2004.”
I laughed again.
“Of course they were.”
“Hannah.”
“Everything convenient happened to my family.”
I drove home without giving the sample.
For six hours, I cleaned.
Countertops.
Laundry.
The pantry.
I reorganized canned soup by expiration date.
At seven, Eli found me scrubbing an already-clean sink.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re doing the weird cleaning thing.”
I looked at him.
“The what?”
“You clean when you’re mad.”
“When did you figure that out?”
“You cleaned the whole garage after Uncle Ryan got arrested.”
I almost smiled.
He had always noticed more than I gave him credit for.
I dried my hands.
“Police found something confusing about when I was born.”
“Like what?”
“That I might need a test.”
His forehead wrinkled.
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Then what kind?”
“A family test.”
He considered it.
“Like DNA?”
I stared.
“Where did you learn about DNA?”
“School.”
Of course.
“It might tell me whether Grandma and Grandpa are my biological parents.”
Eli’s eyes widened.
“Are they?”
“I don’t know.”
He sat at the table.
“Would it change you?”
The question stopped me.
“What?”
“If they’re not.”
I pulled out the chair beside him.
“No.”
“Then why are you scared?”
Nine-year-olds shouldn’t be allowed to ask questions therapists spend decades teaching adults to answer.
“Because sometimes knowing where you came from matters.”
Eli nodded.
“Like Uncle Ryan.”
“Yes.”
He picked at a scratch on the table.
“But you told me he’s still responsible for who he is now.”
I stared at him.
“Yes.”
“Then you are too.”
A laugh escaped me.
A real one.
“You’re annoyingly smart.”
“I know.”
The next morning, I gave Alvarez my DNA.
Then I called Aunt Celia.
“Tell me about when Mom was pregnant with me.”
Silence.
“Hannah…”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not trying to hide anything.”
“Then answer.”
Celia sighed.
“Your mother was pregnant in 1988.”
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“Very pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see me at the hospital?”
Another pause.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Your father said there had been complications.”
“What complications?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
“Hannah, it was almost forty years ago.”
“You remembered the steel box.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“Because your father scared me.”
I went still.
“When?”
“After you were born.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“What happened?”
“I came by the house when you were about two weeks old.”
“And?”
“Your mother wouldn’t let anyone hold you.”
“That sounds normal.”
“It wasn’t.”
Celia’s voice lowered.
“She was terrified.”
“Of what?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Did Dad threaten you?”
“Not exactly.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me families survive because relatives know when not to ask questions.”
My blood chilled.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because until Noah, I thought he was talking about your mother’s mental health.”
“What mental health?”
“She had been devastated after losing a baby.”
“Ryan?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mom lost another child before me?”
Celia inhaled.
“Hannah, I think you need to ask the detective.”
“Ask you.”
“She lost a daughter.”
My knees weakened.
“When?”
“The day you were born.”
The room went completely silent.
“No.”
“She delivered a baby girl.”
“And?”
“The baby didn’t survive.”
I sat down.
“But then…”
“Three days later, your father called and said there had been a miracle.”
My hand shook.
“What miracle?”
“He said doctors had made a mistake.”
“That doesn’t happen.”
“I know that now.”
“You believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
That phrase again.
The family motto.
Not belief.
Need.
“What was the baby’s name?”
“She didn’t have one yet.”
“Did Mom know?”
“I don’t know.”
I hung up and called Alvarez.
“I need you to find a baby girl who died on my birthday.”
He was quiet.
“We’re already looking.”
“There was another baby.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“Since this morning.”
Anger flared.
“Who?”
“We’re not certain.”
“Tell me.”
A pause.
Then:
“Emily Jane Foster.”
My entire body went cold.
“Who was she?”
“Born the same day as you. Same hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Her mother was told she died shortly after birth.”
The walls seemed to move.
“Is there a death certificate?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course not.
“Her mother?”
“Deceased.”
“Father?”
“Unknown on the birth record.”
“Other family?”
“We found a sister.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know?”
“Not yet.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“You think I’m Emily.”
“I think we need the DNA result.”
Two days later, the result came.
Carol and George were not my biological parents.
I stared at the paper.
There was no dramatic scream.
No shattered glass.
Just a number.
Probability of biological maternity: excluded.
Probability of biological paternity: excluded.
I had spent thirty-eight years believing my parents gave me life.
They had given me a name.
Nothing more.
Alvarez sat across from me.
“We compared your DNA to a stored genealogical sample from Emily Foster’s maternal family.”
I knew before he said it.
“You matched.”
“Yes.”
I laughed softly.
“So I’m not Hannah either.”
“That’s your legal name.”
“But not my birth name.”
“No.”
“What was Emily’s?”
“Emily Jane Foster.”
I repeated it.
Emily.
It didn’t feel like me.
Neither had Noah felt like Ryan.
Maybe names didn’t become yours simply because someone wrote them first.
“Did my parents steal me?”
“We’re still reconstructing events.”
“They stole Ryan two years later.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We think your mother’s first baby died. George obtained you through the same network.”
“Network.”
The word sickened me.
“And then when Mom lost another baby two years later, he did it again.”
“That is our working theory.”
I stood.
“How many?”
“Hannah—”
“How many children did they steal?”
“We don’t know.”
I walked toward the window.
For the first time, I remembered my father saying something when I was ten.
We were watching a television report about an adoption scandal.
He scoffed at the screen.
“People get sentimental about biology.”
At the time, I thought he was making conversation.
Now it sounded like philosophy.
A justification.
That afternoon, I visited my mother.
Not at home.
At the police station.
Her attorney sat beside her.
She looked twenty years older.
I placed the DNA result on the table.
“Who am I?”
She stared at the paper.
“Hannah.”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“You are my daughter.”
“What happened to Emily Foster?”
She began crying.
Her attorney touched her arm.
She ignored him.
“I didn’t know.”
“When?”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“Stop using that phrase.”
“It’s true.”
“Did you give birth to a daughter the day I was born?”
“Yes.”
“Did she die?”
Mom covered her mouth.
“Yes.”
“And three days later Dad brought me home?”
She nodded.
“What did he tell you?”
“That the hospital had made a mistake. That our baby had survived.”
“Did you believe him?”
Her face collapsed.
“I wanted to.”
“Did I look like the baby you delivered?”
“I had barely seen her.”
“Mom.”
“I was medicated. There had been bleeding. They took her away.”
“When did you learn I wasn’t yours?”
“Years later.”
“How many?”
She stared at the table.
“How many?”
“Four.”
My breath caught.
“You knew when I was four?”
She nodded.
“And Ryan?”
“I knew when he was five.”
“So by the time I was six, you knew neither of your children belonged to you.”
Her sob echoed through the room.
“You belonged to me.”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“You belonged with the women who gave birth to you.”
“I loved you.”
“You keep saying love as though it erases consent.”
“I fed you. I stayed awake when you were sick. I held you when you cried.”
“And somewhere another woman thought her baby was dead.”
Mom shook her head.
“Your birth mother died believing that.”
I stopped.
“You knew she died?”
“Your father found out.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“And you were relieved?”
Her silence answered.
I pushed back from the table.
“You didn’t want her alive.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You didn’t want the truth alive.”
I stood.
Mom grabbed my wrist.
“Hannah, please.”
I looked at her hand.
She released me.
“You’re my daughter.”
I met her eyes.
“You raised me.”
Her face broke.
For once, I didn’t soften the truth to save her.
As I reached the door, she whispered:
“Your father said there were no families left to hurt.”
I turned slowly.
“What?”
She realized too late that she had said too much.
“What did he mean?”
Her attorney spoke.
“Carol, don’t answer.”
I stepped toward the table.
“What families?”
Mom stared at me.
“What did Dad do?”
Her lips trembled.
Then she whispered:
“He only chose babies when he believed nobody would come looking.”
A coldness spread through me.
This hadn’t been grief.
It hadn’t even been two desperate parents.
It had been selection.
Poor mothers.
Young mothers.
Mothers alone.
Women my father believed nobody important would listen to.
And somewhere in Arizona, Rachel Dorsey had no idea she might be Rebecca Cole.
Somewhere, other adults might be living under names bought for them before they could speak.
As I left the station, Alvarez caught up with me.
“There’s another development.”
I almost told him I couldn’t take another one.
Then I saw his expression.
“What?”
“Rachel Dorsey agreed to DNA testing.”
“And?”
“The preliminary result came back.”
I stopped walking.
“She’s Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
A third stolen child.
Alvarez continued.
“And Patricia Dorsey has started talking.”
“What is she saying?”
“That George didn’t just help her obtain Rebecca.”
My heart began pounding.
“He offered her a catalog.”
I stared at him.
“A what?”
“A handwritten list of newborns.”
For the first time, the investigation was no longer about my family.
May you like
It was about a marketplace.
And my father had known what babies were available.
