Chương 4
“How much?”
Margaret’s face changed.
Claire knew.
“Oh, God.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“How much?”
“Claire.”
“How much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
The room seemed to tilt slightly.
Claire put one hand against the mattress.
“For what?”
Margaret stood, then sat again almost immediately.
“It was supposed to be for legal expenses.”
“Whose legal expenses?”
“Mine.”
“Why did you need thirty thousand dollars in legal expenses to steal my child?”
“I didn’t steal her.”
The security officer outside turned his head.
Margaret lowered her voice.
“I signed papers.”
“What papers?”
“Temporary family authorization. I thought.”
“You thought?”
“I didn’t understand what they were doing.”
“You always understand paperwork.”
“That’s not true.”
“You read the terms and conditions on your toaster.”
Margaret almost smiled, which made Claire hate her for a second.
“I panicked.”
“About what?”
“You.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Claire leaned back against the pillow.
Margaret looked at her hands.
“You were barely sleeping the last month. You were missing work. You cried because the grocery store stopped carrying that stupid lemon cereal.”
“It was seasonal.”
“I know it was seasonal.”
“I wasn’t unstable because of cereal.”
“I didn’t say you were unstable.”
“You took thirty thousand dollars from my dead boyfriend’s mother and signed papers about my baby while I was unconscious.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“No. You don’t get to say that. That sentence is for things that sound worse than they are.”
Margaret absorbed the hit without reacting.
Claire continued.
“Did I agree to adoption?”
“No.”
“Did I agree to guardianship?”
“No.”
“Did I agree to Eleanor taking her anywhere?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Margaret’s eyes filled, but she blinked the tears back.
“Because Eleanor said she was going to court.”
“She can go to court.”
“She said she had messages from you saying you never wanted children.”
Claire went still.
There were messages.
Old ones.
From before the pregnancy.
From one of the worst weeks she and Michael had ever had, when his father was dying and Claire’s rent had gone up and they had fought about moving in together.
Michael had said she treated every serious choice like a trapdoor.
Claire had replied that maybe she did.
Then she had written, I don’t even know if I want kids. Maybe I’d be terrible at it.
A statement made at 1:14 in the morning during an argument had become evidence eleven months later.
Margaret saw recognition in her face.
“She had screenshots.”
“So?”
“She had other things.”
“What?”
“That you’d looked at adoption websites.”
Claire stared.
“I looked at everything.”
“I know.”
“Day care. Cribs. Adoption. Single-parent forums. How to install a car seat. How much formula costs. Whether babies can sleep in travel cribs. I looked up whether newborns can sneeze too much.”
“I know.”
“No, apparently you don’t.”
“Eleanor said she could make you look reckless. She said she had a lawyer who would file for emergency placement the minute the baby was born. She said if we cooperated, it would be temporary and private and nobody would turn your life into a custody case while you were recovering.”
“We?”
Margaret’s silence answered.
Claire looked toward the hallway.
Daniel was speaking to someone at the nurses’ station.
The normality of his posture made her feel suddenly detached from her own body.
“What did you tell Eleanor?”
Margaret rubbed her forehead.
“That I’d help keep things calm.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“You knew then.”
“I told her when you went into labor.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Margaret looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“You called her?”
“Yes.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t.”
“I know.”
Claire turned away.
This hurt differently.
The missing baby was terror.
This was smaller.
Older.
Personal.
Margaret had broken a promise while Claire was still conscious enough to believe she had one person entirely on her side.
Claire remembered labor only in fragments, but one fragment returned clearly: Margaret holding a straw to her mouth while Claire said, Don’t call Eleanor. Not until she’s born. Not until I decide.
Margaret had said, I won’t.
Claire stared through the blinds.
“You lied to my face.”
“Yes.”
“Get out.”
Margaret stood.
“Claire—”
“Get out.”
“Please let me tell you the rest.”
“I don’t care about the rest right now.”
“You need to.”
“Then tell Daniel. Tell the police. Tell a wall. I don’t care.”
Margaret stayed still.
Claire reached toward the call cord.
Her fingers closed around the white button.
Margaret flinched.
Claire pressed it.
A soft chime sounded at the station.
The gesture felt childish.
It also felt necessary.
Margaret walked into the corridor.
Claire did not watch her leave.
Two hours later, the hospital knew considerably more and Claire knew almost nothing that made her feel better.
The transfer paperwork from Hawthorne Women’s Center had been scanned at 4:38 that morning by an admissions clerk named Rosa Bennett.
Rosa had not changed it.
She remembered the packet because half the pages had arrived with faint gray bars down one side from a bad fax machine.
The diagnosis already read post-procedure hemorrhage.
There was no mention of a live birth.
There was no newborn transfer form.
There was no maternal-infant identification sheet.
Hawthorne was not part of the hospital system. It was a small physician-owned facility twenty-five minutes away with two delivery suites, an operating room, and a transfer agreement for emergencies.
Calls to Hawthorne went to an answering service.
The on-call administrator did not answer.
Daniel learned another thing.
Claire’s chart showed a documentation amendment at 4:12 a.m., twenty-six minutes before she arrived.
The amendment had been entered through an external referral portal.
The user credentials belonged to a Hawthorne physician named Dr. Stephen Voss.
Dr. Patel knew the name.
She said nothing judgmental about him, which somehow made Claire pay closer attention.
“He’s an obstetrician?”
“Yes.”
“Was he mine?”
“No. Your prenatal records list Dr. Lin.”
“Who delivered my daughter?”
Dr. Patel looked at the screen.
May you like
“According to the documents we currently have, no one did.”
Claire looked away.
