Page 15 of The Other Mother

THE SIGNATURE

D arkness. Complete and suffocating, like being buried alive.

The first thing I notice is the beeping. Steady and electronic, the sound of machines monitoring life. Then the sensation of movement, wheels rolling across smooth linoleum, the slight vibration traveling up through whatever I'm lying on.

I'm on a gurney. My body feels heavy, disconnected, like it belongs to someone else.

When I try to lift my head, it lolls to one side, muscles refusing to obey.

Fluorescent ceiling lights pass overhead in sequence, each one creating a brief flash of white behind my eyelids.

They flicker as they pass, creating a strobe effect that makes everything feel surreal.

My arms are strapped down. Thick canvas restraints across my wrists, the kind they use to keep patients from pulling out IVs or fighting the medical staff. The realization should terrify me, but my emotions feel muffled, wrapped in cotton.

My vision blurs and refocuses, blurs again. Voices swirl around me, not yelling but urgent. Calm. Coercive. The tone people use when they're trying to convince you that something terrible is actually for your own good.

"You signed it, Claire." A woman's voice, professional and soothing. "You said yes. You understood what would happen."

I try to respond, to ask what I signed, but my mouth won't move. My tongue feels thick and useless, like I've been given too much anesthesia. The words are trapped inside my head, screaming silently against my skull.

"It's all for the best. You were very brave."

A clipboard flashes across my vision, white paper with black text that refuses to focus.

I can make out a name at the top: C. Matthews . My name.

A pen appears in my limp hand, guided by someone else's fingers wrapped around mine. I watch my own handwriting form on the page, letters spelling out words I can't read, creating a signature that looks like mine but doesn't feel like mine.

The stylus moves across the paper with mechanical precision, forming loops and curves that match what I've written thousands of times before. But there's no intention behind it. It's like someone else is doing it.

"We didn't trick you. You agreed."

The voice is gentle and chilling, the tone a mother might use to comfort a child who's afraid of getting a shot. Reassuring but final, brooking no argument.

My eyes flutter, and everything goes in and out of focus. At the edge of my peripheral vision, I catch a glimpse of movement. A bassinet being rolled away in the opposite direction, its wheels squeaking slightly on the polished floor.

A woman screams somewhere behind me, the sound raw and desperate and heartbreakingly familiar. "That's my baby! You can't take her!"

The voice echoes off the hospital walls, bouncing between the fluorescent lights and institutional green paint until it becomes a wail, then a whisper, then nothing.

Everything goes white.

I jolt awake in bed. The sheets are soaked with sweat, twisted around my legs from thrashing in my sleep. Adam's side of the bed is empty, and I can hear the shower running in our bathroom. He must be getting ready for another early meeting.

The baby monitor on my nightstand is silent for a moment, its green light steady and reassuring. Then it flickers with static, a brief burst of white noise that makes me sit up straighter. The static clears, and Eva's cry comes through the speaker, high and thin and urgent.

I stagger into the nursery, my legs still weak from the dream. The room is bathed in the soft yellow glow of the nightlight, casting familiar shadows across the walls. Eva is awake in her crib, her tiny fists waving in the air as she cries.

I reach down and pick her up, supporting her head the way I've done dozens of times before. But the moment she settles into my arms, I freeze.

Something feels wrong.

Not with her physically. She's warm and solid and real, her weight familiar against my chest. But something else. Something fundamental.

The name doesn't feel right.

I open my mouth to soothe her, to whisper the words I always do when she's upset. But the sound that should come naturally, automatically, sticks in my throat.

"E ..." I start, then stop. The letter hangs in the air between us. "Evie?"

The name sounds foreign on my tongue. Flat and strange, like I'm speaking a language I don't quite understand. Like I'm saying it for the first time.

Eva continues to fuss, her tiny face scrunched with whatever infant discomfort has woken her. I try again, forcing the syllables out.

"Eva."

The baby calms immediately, her crying tapering off to small hiccups. She settles against my shoulder, her breathing gradually slowing and deepening.

I look down at her, studying her face in the dim light. Her features are delicate and perfect, the kind of baby face that should inspire instant love. But as I stare at her, I feel like I'm looking at a puzzle with pieces that don't quite fit together.

"You know me, don't you?" I whisper, my voice barely audible. "I'm your mom."

I pause, the words feeling strange and uncertain. I touch her tiny ear, perfect and shell-like, then trace the fine hair along her hairline. Everything about her should be familiar.

"Aren't I?"

The question hangs in the air. Eva doesn't answer, of course. She's just a baby, innocent of whatever doubts are eating away at my sanity. But her silence feels loaded with meaning I can't decode.

I carry her to our master bathroom, flipping on the light with my elbow. The sudden brightness makes me squint, and I have to blink several times before my eyes adjust. Adam's shower is still running, steam beginning to fog the mirror above the double sink.

I stand in front of the mirror, Eva cradled in my arms, and look at our reflection. We should look like a perfect mother and child tableau, the kind of image that gets framed and displayed on mantels. But something about what I see makes my stomach clench with unease.

My skin is pale, almost gray in the harsh bathroom lighting.

Dark circles ring my eyes, making them look sunken and hollow.

My hair hangs limp and unwashed around my shoulders.

I look like someone who's been sick for a long time, someone who's been fighting a losing battle against something invisible .

Eva looks healthy and pink against my chest. She seems to glow with that robust vitality that newborns have when they're thriving. But there's something about the juxtaposition that feels wrong, like we don't belong together in the same frame.

"I didn't sign anything," I whisper to my reflection, my voice barely audible over the sound of Adam's shower. "Did I?"

But even as I say it, I can feel the phantom weight of a pen in my hand. The memory of my own signature forming on paper, guided by fingers that weren't entirely mine. The sound of a woman's voice telling me I had agreed, that I had been brave.

Eva reaches toward our reflection in the mirror, her tiny hand grasping at nothing. Her face transforms into that wide, open smile I've seen before, the one that should fill me with joy but instead makes me feel like I'm looking at a stranger.

She giggles.

The sound is pure and sweet, the kind of baby laugh that melts hearts and makes grandmothers weep with happiness. It should be the most beautiful sound in the world to me.

But I don't smile back.