Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW MY HUSBAND
“Don't tell her about the photograph!” Emma's fiancé shouted.
The words stopped everyone.
I turned toward Nathan Parker, the man who was supposed to marry my daughter in less than two hours.
His face had gone pale.
“What photograph?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
The stranger standing near the entrance looked at Nathan with an expression I couldn't understand.
Not anger.
Not surprise.
Something closer to heartbreak.
“Nathan,” she whispered. “You promised you wouldn't do this.”
He stepped toward her.
“And you promised you wouldn't come here.”
My daughter Emma stood beside the staircase, gripping the white ribbon around her bridal bouquet.
I had never seen her look so frightened.
“Somebody needs to explain what's happening,” I said.
David reached for my hand.
“Laura, please. We need somewhere private.”
I pulled away.
“No. Yesterday, someone used my name to interfere with my daughter's wedding cake. You lied about knowing her. Emma lied about knowing her. And now Nathan is acting as though this woman has the power to destroy his wedding.”
The stranger lowered her eyes.
“I'm sorry about the cake.”
“Then start there.”
She looked at me.
“My name is Rebecca Ellis.”
I waited.
Rebecca glanced at David.
“Your husband and I knew each other twenty-eight years ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“Were you together?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“Through your daughter.”
I actually laughed.
It was a sharp, ugly sound.
“My daughter wasn't even born twenty-eight years ago.”
“She was about to be.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Emma was twenty-seven.
She had been born on a rainy Thursday in November, three weeks ahead of her due date.
I remembered everything about that day.
Or at least I thought I did.
David moved between us.
“Rebecca, that's enough.”
She looked past him.
“You're still doing it.”
“Doing what?” I demanded.
“Deciding what she deserves to know.”
Nathan stepped forward again.
“Rebecca, please. Not here.”
She turned on him.
“You asked me to stay away from the one person who could tell me whether what happened was true.”
Nathan's expression hardened.
“I asked you not to hurt Emma.”
Rebecca looked toward my daughter.
“And what about her mother?”
Emma suddenly spoke.
“Mom, please come upstairs with me.”
I stared at her.
“Tell me one thing first. Do you know who this woman is?”
Emma's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
That single word hurt more than David's refusal the night before.
My own daughter had been keeping something from me.
“For how long?”
“Six weeks.”
“Six weeks?”
Emma looked down.
“Dad told me there was something about my birth I needed to understand.”
I turned toward David.
He closed his eyes.
Rebecca reached into her handbag.
Nathan caught her wrist before she could remove anything.
“Don't.”
She stared at him.
Then, slowly, he released her.
Rebecca withdrew a small photograph.
It had worn white borders and a crease through the middle.
She held it toward me.
“Do you recognize this?”
The photograph showed a young woman in a hospital bed holding a newborn baby.
Beside her stood David.
Younger.
Thinner.
Wearing the brown leather jacket I had bought him for our second anniversary.
I recognized that jacket immediately.
But the woman holding the baby wasn't me.
It was Rebecca.
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
Then I noticed something worse.
David's hand rested on the baby's blanket.
And around the baby's wrist was a tiny pink hospital band.
I leaned closer.
The writing was faded, but I could still make out the date.
November 14.
Emma's birthday.
My knees weakened.
“David?”
He looked at me with such naked regret that I knew the picture was real.
I gripped the edge of a nearby table.
“Whose baby is that?”
Rebecca's lips trembled.
“That is what I've been trying to find out.”
Nathan stepped beside Emma.
“Laura, the photograph doesn't prove what you think.”
I looked at him.
“And what exactly do I think?”
He hesitated.
Rebecca answered.
“That the baby might be Emma.”
My daughter began crying.
I couldn't look at her.
My mind had already returned to the hospital where she'd been born.
A difficult delivery.
Heavy medication.
A fever afterward.
Almost eighteen hours I couldn't remember clearly.
David had told me everything was fine.
He had brought Emma to my bedside, wrapped in a yellow blanket.
Yellow.
Not pink.
I remembered because my mother had complained that the hospital ought to have given us something prettier.
“Why would you be holding my baby?” I asked Rebecca.
She lowered the photograph.
“Because I had a baby that same night.”
David said her name sharply.
But I barely heard him.
Rebecca continued.
“My daughter was born eleven minutes before Emma.”
I looked between them.
“Where is she?”
Nobody moved.
“Rebecca, where is your daughter?”
Her expression changed.
“She was taken out of my room before sunrise.”
My heart began pounding.
“Taken where?”
“I was told there had been a medical emergency. Later, I was told she hadn't survived.”
I pressed my hand against my mouth.
Rebecca's eyes never left mine.
“For twenty-eight years, I believed my child was gone.”
Nathan whispered, “Please stop.”
Rebecca turned toward him.
“Then tell her what you found.”
I looked at Nathan.
His face had lost every bit of color.
“What did you find?”
He shook his head.
“Something that could be a mistake.”
“What?”
He looked toward Emma.
And for the first time, I noticed that my daughter wasn't looking at her father.
She was looking at Nathan.
With fear.
Not confusion.
Fear.
“Emma,” I whispered. “What aren't you telling me?”
She started toward me.
“Mom, I wanted to explain. I really did.”
“Explain what?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I didn't know how.”
Rebecca reached into her handbag again.
This time, Nathan didn't stop her.
She removed a second photograph.
Two newborn babies lay side by side in transparent hospital bassinets.
Each wore a pink wristband.
Rebecca pointed at the baby on the left.
“That was my daughter.”
Then she pointed to the other.
“And that was yours.”
I studied the photograph.
The blankets were identical.
The babies looked almost identical.
But something about the wristbands bothered me.
Rebecca turned the picture over.
Written on the back were two names.
ELLIOT — BABY GIRL.
MITCHELL — BABY GIRL.
Beneath them was a handwritten note.
Room 214. Ask Dr. Whitcomb why the bracelets were changed.
I stared at those words.
“Who wrote this?”
Rebecca looked toward Nathan.
“He found it inside his father's belongings.”
I looked at my future son-in-law.
“Your father?”
Nathan's voice cracked.
“My father was the hospital administrator.”
I could barely breathe.
“And he knew about this?”
Nathan nodded.
“He knew both babies were alive after the delivery.”
Emma gripped his arm.
“Nathan, please.”
But he looked at me.
“Laura, there's something else.”
He took a folded piece of paper from his jacket.
“I found this with the photographs.”
David made a sudden movement.
“Don't show her that.”
Nathan ignored him.
He unfolded the paper.
It was a photocopy of an old hospital authorization form.
At the bottom was my name.
LAURA MITCHELL.
And beneath it—
A signature I had never written.
May you like
Nathan looked me straight in the eyes.
“According to this document, you personally authorized the transfer of Rebecca's baby.”
