Chương 5
Then sat down again.
“This is not possible.”
“I’m aware.”
“When?”
“February twelfth.”
Margaret’s head lifted.
“Vanessa delivered February eleventh.”
The train moved beneath them.
Rachel sat opposite her mother-in-law.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Rachel asked, “Where?”
“Denver.”
“So did I.”
Margaret whispered, “My God.”
Rachel’s phone vibrated.
DAVID.
She rejected the call.
It rang again.
Rejected.
A message appeared.
Please let me explain one thing I should have told you first.
Rachel stared at it.
Margaret said, “You should probably hear him.”
“I have been hearing him for eleven years.”
“I don’t mean forgive him.”
Rachel looked at her.
Margaret’s hands were trembling.
“I mean we are missing something.”
Rachel knew that.
She hated that Margaret was right.
She opened the door.
David was standing six feet down the corridor.
He had apparently understood that waiting directly outside would be a mistake.
Rachel held Noah closer.
“Three minutes.”
David nodded.
They returned to the private lounge.
Vanessa was still there.
She had moved to the window and was standing with her arms folded.
Rachel entered.
“Margaret says Vanessa gave birth on February eleventh.”
David looked at his mother.
Then at Rachel.
“Yes.”
“I gave birth February twelfth.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Vanessa’s baby?”
Vanessa turned from the window.
David said nothing.
Rachel looked at her.
“Where is the baby you delivered?”
Vanessa’s face crumpled.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
“I don’t know.”
Rachel felt the air leave her.
“What do you mean?”
Vanessa gripped the back of a chair.
“He was taken to the NICU.”
“Why?”
“Respiratory distress.”
“Which hospital?”
“St. Catherine’s.”
Rachel stared at her.
“So was I.”
“I know.”
Rachel looked at David.
“What happened?”
He sat.
This time Rachel did too, because her legs were beginning to shake.
David spoke slowly.
“Your labor started early on the eleventh.”
“I remember.”
“You were thirty-six weeks.”
“I remember.”
“The hospital delayed delivery because Noah’s heart rate stabilized.”
“Yes.”
“Vanessa had already been admitted.”
Rachel frowned.
“For what?”
“Preeclampsia.”
Vanessa nodded.
“They did an emergency C-section at 11:43 p.m.”
Rachel looked at her.
“And my C-section was at 2:16 the next afternoon.”
“Yes.”
“So there were two babies.”
“Yes.”
“Both boys.”
“Yes.”
“Both listed as Morgan.”
Nobody answered.
Rachel looked down at the silver bracelet.
MORGAN.
“Oh, my God.”
David leaned forward.
“That’s what the clinic thinks happened.”
“What happened?”
“They don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“They believe there may have been a hospital identification error.”
Rachel stared at him.
“No.”
“It’s one possibility.”
“You are telling me the hospital switched two babies?”
“No. I’m telling you we have evidence that makes us afraid they might have.”
Rachel looked at Noah.
His eyes were closing.
The absurdity of sleep.
The whole world could split open and an eight-month-old still needed his nap.
Rachel stood.
“We’re getting a DNA test.”
David nodded.
“Tonight.”
“We can’t get a reliable lab result tonight.”
“Then we get samples tonight.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t arrange it.”
He stopped.
“I do.”
“Okay.”
“And you don’t call Caleb.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t call the clinic.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t call the hospital.”
David nodded.
Rachel looked at Vanessa.
“You come too.”
Vanessa blinked.
“Why?”
“Because there were two babies.”
Vanessa’s face tightened.
Rachel continued.
“And if Noah isn’t genetically mine, we need to know whether he’s genetically yours.”
Vanessa looked at the sleeping child.
For the first time that night, fear displaced guilt.
“What if he is?”
Rachel’s arms tightened around Noah.
“I don’t know.”
It was the first honest answer anyone had given.
The storm stopped the train forty minutes later.
They were somewhere west of Winter Park when the conductor announced that avalanche-control work had closed the track ahead. They would remain stationary until clearance.
Rachel stood in the narrow vestibule between cars trying to find enough signal to search for an accredited laboratory.
One bar appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared.
Her search results half-loaded.
David stood ten feet away because she had told him to.
Vanessa had returned to her compartment to get her identification.
Margaret was calling the family’s driver in Denver, although there was nowhere for the driver to meet a train trapped between mountains.
Normal logistics had become comforting.
Rachel found herself caring intensely whether they could reach Denver before nine in the morning.
It was easier than wondering whether the child asleep against her body belonged, in some biological sense she suddenly resented, to someone else.
David said, “There’s a lab in Denver that opens at seven.”
“I found it.”
“They do legal chain-of-custody testing.”
“I found that too.”
He nodded.
Rachel looked at him.
“Why did you put the bracelet on him?”
David’s face changed.
“I didn’t.”
“Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Then how did it get there?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel looked down.
The bracelet had not been on Noah that morning.
She was almost certain.
She had dressed him.
Cream onesie, socks, soft gray booties.
She had folded the cuffs back because the compartment was warm.
No bracelet.
She remembered his bare wrist.
“Someone put it on him today.”
David frowned.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Rachel reconstructed the day.
Breakfast.
Observation car.
Nap.
Diaper change.
Lunch.
Margaret holding Noah while Rachel showered.
Vanessa taking him for twenty minutes because Rachel’s coffee had spilled down her dress.
Rachel looked toward the sleeper car.
“Vanessa.”
David’s jaw tightened.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t decide before you ask.”
Rachel stared at him.
“That’s rich.”
He accepted it.
“You’re right.”
She hated him slightly less for half a second.
Then remembered why they were standing there.
Vanessa returned wearing a charcoal coat over her burgundy dress.
“What?”
Rachel held up Noah’s wrist.
“Did you put this on him?”
Vanessa stared at the bracelet.
“No.”
“You held him this afternoon.”
“Yes.”
“Was he wearing it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
Vanessa looked genuinely confused.
“I was watching his hands because he kept trying to eat the tassel on my scarf.”
Rachel remembered the scarf.
Red wool.
Noah had drooled on it.
“Did you see silver?”
May you like
“I don’t think so.”
Margaret joined them.
