Chương 8
“Eli.”
“Possibly.”
“Why wasn’t he compared with missing-child reports?”
“No infant had been reported missing. According to every official record available at the time, Baby B Bennett had died.”
Daniel sat at the other end of the table.
“What about Marlene?” he asked.
“She was a transport respiratory technician. She worked Unit Twelve that night but later signed a supplemental statement saying she had assisted Unit Eight because of staffing shortages.”
“Which unit was she actually in?” Rachel asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Ask her.”
“She remains sedated.”
“Wake her.”
Detective Hill did not react.
Rachel regretted the demand immediately but did not withdraw it.
He closed the file.
“There is another problem.”
“What?”
“The settlement included an independent review by a physician hired by your attorneys.”
“We didn’t have attorneys,” Rachel said.
Daniel looked at the table.
“My mother-in-law hired one.”
Rachel turned to him. “Who?”
“Gerald Pike.”
Detective Hill opened another page.
“Gerald Pike was Marlene Voss’s brother.”
Daniel’s head lifted.
Rachel felt the room narrow.
“Did you know that?”
“No.”
“Did Lorraine?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your mother-in-law retained an attorney who concealed a family relationship to a transport employee,” Hill said. “That attorney advised you to settle the matter as a record-keeping failure rather than pursue a wrongful identification claim.”
“Where is he now?” Daniel asked.
“Disbarred. He died in 2021.”
Rachel laughed for the third time in two days.
The dead were becoming extremely efficient at avoiding questions.
The DNA results arrived the following morning.
The accredited laboratory found a greater than 99.99 percent probability that Rachel was the biological mother of both boys. The boys’ profiles were consistent with monozygotic twins.
The report did not determine which child had been labeled Baby A or Baby B.
Noah read that part twice.
“So either of us could be Eli.”
Samantha, who had joined them in Rachel’s living room, corrected him. “Either of you could have received either hospital label. But your life histories still matter. You are Noah. He is Eli.”
“The bracelet says Baby B.”
“It connects the bracelet to the birth event. It doesn’t prove who wore it every minute of that night.”
Rachel looked at the photograph on the coffee table.
“Can they compare the newborn picture to our faces?”
“Not reliably enough for court.”
“What about the mark behind Noah’s ear?”
“Does Eli have one?”
They did not know.
At the supervised visit that afternoon, Noah asked him.
The twins sat across from each other in a family room at the child services office. A shelf held puzzles missing pieces and plastic bins labeled by age. Rachel sat several feet away with Priya.
“Do you have a mark behind your ear?” Noah asked.
Eli touched the left side of his head. “Everybody has marks.”
“A small brown one.”
“No.”
“Can I see?”
Eli turned his head.
Behind his right ear was a tiny crescent-shaped birthmark.
Rachel stopped breathing.
Noah had the same mark behind his left ear.
Mirror placement, the pediatrician later explained, could occur in identical twins.
It proved nothing about birth order.
It proved everything to the children.
Eli touched Noah’s ear. Noah allowed it for one second, then pulled away.
“People online say she threw me out,” Eli said.
Rachel leaned forward. “That is not true.”
Priya raised a hand.
Eli looked at Rachel. “They say rich people keep the healthy baby.”
“You were both premature.”
“Were you sick?” Eli asked Noah.
“Yes.”
“How sick?”
“I stopped breathing.”
“How many times?”
Noah hesitated. “More than once.”
“So she kept the sick one.”
Rachel heard the challenge beneath the words. If the internet’s explanation was wrong, another one had to take its place.
“I kept the baby the hospital gave back to me,” she said.
Eli looked down.
“Did you ask for the other one?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
The room became very quiet.
Rachel could have said forever.
It would have been emotionally true and factually false.
“For several weeks,” she said. “Then the people around me convinced me he had died.”
Eli picked at a loose thread on his borrowed sleeve.
“You stopped asking.”
“Yes.”
Noah looked at her too.
Rachel felt the answer strip something from her, but she did not revise it.
“I stopped because I believed them,” she continued. “And because I was afraid that if I kept asking, I would lose the child I still had.”
Eli’s expression hardened. “So you picked.”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I made a frightened decision. That isn’t the same as choosing which child mattered.”
“Feels the same if you’re the one not there.”
Priya did not interrupt.
Rachel nodded.
“It may.”
Eli stood and walked to the window.
Below them, people crossed the agency parking lot carrying coffee, folders, and children who did not want to hold their hands.
Noah remained seated.
After a while, he opened the puzzle box and began sorting edge pieces.
One piece had a picture of a red barn. Another showed half a cow.
Eli returned from the window.
Without speaking, he picked up the matching half.
Their first hour together ended that way.
The home study occurred the next day.
A caseworker inspected smoke detectors, medications, cleaning supplies, window locks, and the guest bedroom. Rachel had removed the expensive new bedding she bought in a panic after Samantha warned her not to construct a fantasy child’s room. The bed now had plain gray sheets. A small desk stood by the window. The closet was empty.
“Does Eli have preferences?” the caseworker asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Good answer.”
Rachel disliked being praised for ignorance.
The caseworker opened the refrigerator.
Noah stood in the kitchen doorway.
“Are you checking if we have food?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We can buy food.”
“Some families can’t.”
“Then why does having food today prove they’ll have it later?”
The caseworker looked at him.
“It doesn’t. Home studies are imperfect.”
Noah appeared unsettled by her honesty.
May you like
After she left, he opened the refrigerator and stared inside.
“We have three kinds of mustard,” he said.
