Chương 5
Whether she would be good at breastfeeding.
Whether she would be one of those mothers who never slept because they kept checking if the baby was breathing.
Nobody had told her to worry that one day she might have to prove the baby was hers.
Her phone lit on the side table.
DANIEL CALLING.
Emily stared at it.
The call stopped.
Then immediately began again.
Nina looked away.
Emily answered.
Daniel’s face filled the screen, grainy beneath airport lighting.
“Hey. Finally. They might get us out in forty minutes. How’s our—”
He stopped.
Emily’s face must have told him.
“What happened?”
She tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
Daniel leaned closer to his screen.
“Em?”
“There’s a problem.”
“With you?”
“No.”
“The baby?”
“I don’t know.”
His expression tightened.
“What does that mean?”
Emily looked at the child in her arms.
“The ID band doesn’t match mine.”
Daniel went still.
“What?”
“There were two babies.”
“Emily.”
“One left on a helicopter.”
“What helicopter?”
“I don’t know how to explain this.”
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know which she.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
The reaction hurt more than panic would have.
When he opened them again, his voice was quiet.
“Where are you?”
“The medical terminal.”
“I know that. Are you alone?”
Emily looked around the crowded lounge.
“Yes.”
Nathan looked down.
Daniel said, “Put somebody on.”
Emily nearly laughed.
“Who?”
“A doctor.”
She glanced at Nathan.
“No.”
“Emily.”
“One of them just told me the baby I’m holding may not be ours.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“Put that one on.”
Despite everything, Emily almost smiled.
Nathan heard him.
“I probably deserve that,” he said.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“Who said that?”
“The doctor.”
“Give him the phone.”
“No.”
“Emily, give him the phone.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I slapped him.”
Silence.
Daniel blinked.
“You what?”
“He tried to touch the baby.”
“Okay.”
Emily knew that tone.
It meant Daniel was storing the information for later because he had no available category for it now.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“My incision hurts.”
“Has anyone checked you?”
“Yes.”
“Are they keeping the baby with you?”
“For now.”
“For now?”
Porter stepped forward.
“Ms. Hayes, we do need to discuss the infant’s clinical assessment.”
Daniel heard her.
“Who is that?”
Emily turned the phone slightly.
“Medical director.”
Daniel said, “Doctor, are you taking that baby away from my wife?”
Porter’s tone became formal.
“No one is removing the infant from Ms. Hayes’s sight. We are managing an identification discrepancy and ensuring both newborns receive appropriate medical care.”
“Both newborns.”
“Yes.”
“Where’s the other one?”
“Mercy Children’s Hospital.”
Daniel looked at Emily.
“How far?”
“Twenty minutes by road,” Nathan said.
Daniel heard him too.
“You the one she hit?”
Nathan sighed.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Daniel.”
“Sorry.”
He did not sound sorry.
Emily pressed her lips together.
The baby moved.
Daniel saw it on the screen.
Everything in his face softened and broke at once.
“Can you show me?”
Emily hesitated.
That hesitation was new.
It felt unforgivable.
Then she tilted the phone.
The newborn slept against her hospital gown, one fist beneath her chin.
Daniel was silent for several seconds.
“She looks the same.”
Emily closed her eyes.
“I know.”
That was the problem.
The storm closed the road to Mercy twelve minutes later.
Water had collected beneath an overpass, and airport police blocked eastbound traffic until drainage crews could clear it. The helicopter could not return because the storm cell had settled directly over the airport.
For perhaps the first time that night, nobody tried to overcome the weather with procedure.
They simply had to remain where they were.
The infant in Emily’s arms was placed on continuous monitoring while Emily was allowed to keep holding her. A wheeled bassinet stayed beside the recliner, unused.
Porter established a temporary identification hold on both newborns.
Their names disappeared from the whiteboard.
In their place were two temporary labels.
INFANT A.
INFANT B.
Emily hated that too.
At Mercy, the newborn who had arrived by helicopter became Infant B.
The baby in Emily’s arms became Infant A.
No one was permitted to change the ankle bands.
No one was permitted to remove them.
No one was permitted to rely on them.
Marcus photographed the manifest where it had fallen before placing it in a clear evidence sleeve.
The locked silver case remained beside the trolley.
Emily noticed it every few minutes.
Eventually she asked, “What’s in there?”
Nina answered.
“Backup transfer material.”
“What kind?”
“Sealed identification label sets. Cord documentation copies. transport forms. Sample transport supplies.”
“Why is it locked?”
“Controlled chain of custody.”
Emily looked at the case.
“Whose?”
Nina hesitated.
“Both infants’.”
Nathan turned.
“You said that case left with Flight Two.”
“I thought it did.”
“Why didn’t it?”
Nina crouched beside the silver case without touching it.
A white routing tag hung from the handle.
She read it.
Then read it again.
“That’s wrong.”
Porter’s patience thinned.
“What now?”
Nina looked up.
“This is the neonatal backup case for both transfers.”
Nathan stared at her.
“Why is it here?”
“It was staged with 1814.”
Emily looked at the baby.
The room seemed to contract.
Marcus knelt beside Nina.
“Don’t touch the latch.”
“I wasn’t.”
He read the seal number and wrote it into his incident log.
Emily watched him.
“You really do write everything down.”
Marcus did not look up.
“When nights become lawsuits, people develop respect for boring habits.”
It was the first almost-joke anyone had made since the slap.
Emily surprised herself by exhaling something close to a laugh.
It hurt her abdomen.
She pressed a hand over the incision.
Marcus noticed.
“You should let them give you pain medication.”
“I don’t want to be sleepy.”
“You don’t have to prove you can suffer.”
Emily looked at him.
“I don’t know you.”
“No.”
“Then don’t tell me what I’m proving.”
Marcus nodded once.
“Fair.”
Ten minutes later, she took the medication.
The other mother’s name reached Emily indirectly.
May you like
Not from Porter.
Not from Nathan.
