Page 29 of The Other Mother

THE NURSE'S SECRET

T he morning after getting the photo from Mara, I can't stop staring at it. My mother's blanket wrapped around a baby that might not be mine. The rosebud pattern she embroidered when she was still healthy, still believing she'd live to see her grandchildren.

I'm sitting in the kitchen, Eva nursing quietly in my arms, when Adam walks in from his run.

His face is flushed, sweat darkening his gray tank top.

He used to run in Orange County before work too, but here in the desert he also goes out to beat the heat.

The ritual grounds him, makes him feel like he's conquering something.

"You're up early," he says, grabbing a water bottle from the fridge.

"Couldn't sleep."

He glances at the photo on the counter, partially hidden under a dish towel. I move it further away, but his eyes linger.

"What's that?"

"Nothing. Just some old pictures I found."

Adam has always been good at reading my tells. The way I avoid eye contact when I'm hiding something. How my voice gets too casual when I'm lying. He steps closer, and I feel the familiar weight of his attention, like standing under a heat lamp.

"Claire." His voice is gentle but insistent. "What's going on?"

For a moment, I almost tell him. Almost show him the photo, explain about Mara, about the blanket my mother made. But then I remember the video footage Lex found. The signature that wasn't mine. The way Adam's face looked when I asked about the pacifier.

"I was thinking about my mom," I say instead. It's not entirely a lie. "How she used to embroider things for the baby. Before she got too sick."

Adam's expression softens. He knows this is still tender territory. My mother died two months before Adam and I got engaged. I know it’s not her fault, but I’ve never quite forgiven her for missing our wedding, our pregnancy, Eva's birth. All the moments she should have been there for.

"She would have loved her," Adam says, nodding toward Eva.

"Would she?" The question slips out before I can stop it. "What if Eva wasn't ... what if things were different? "

Adam sits down across from me, his runner's high fading into concern. "Different how?"

I study his face. The way his jaw tightens when he's preparing to manage me. The slight furrow between his brows that appears whenever I'm being what he calls "emotional."

"Nothing. Just tired thoughts."

He reaches across and touches my hand. His palm is still warm from his run.

"Maybe you should call your OB. Just to check in. It's been a while since your last appointment."

My OB is a kind woman with soft hands and a voice like warm honey. But she's also the one who discharged me from the hospital, who signed off on all the paperwork I can't remember filling out.

"Maybe," I say.

Adam squeezes my hand once, then stands. "I'm going to shower. Then I thought we could drive into town, maybe have lunch at that place with the patio. Get you out of the house."

After he leaves, I slip the photo back into my purse. I need answers, and I know where to get them.

Finding June Harper takes three phone calls and a lie about being a former patient seeking closure. The woman who finally gives me her address sounds tired, like she's used to fielding calls about the past .

“And she doesn't like visitors,” she warns me. But I'm past caring about what people like.

The address leads me to a trailer park on the outskirts of town, where the desert feels more raw and unforgiving.

Mobile homes sit scattered like dice across the hardpan, connected by gravel roads that kick up dust clouds when cars pass.

The air smells like creosote and propane, with an underlying sweetness that is either dying grass or a heat-baked trashcan.

June Harper's trailer is at the end of a dead-end road, surrounded by a collection of wind chimes that tinkle and clatter in the constant breeze. There must be dozens of them, hanging from every available surface. Some are metal that ping like bells and others are ceramic with faded flowers.

The trailer itself is the color of old bones, with a corrugated metal awning that provides a strip of shade along the front.

Boxes are stacked everywhere, some cardboard, some plastic storage bins, all bleached by the sun and warped by heat.

Through the thin walls, I can hear a television playing too loudly.

I sit in my car for a full five minutes, engine running, air conditioning blasting, before I work up the courage to get out. Eva is asleep in her seat, and there’s no way I can leave her in the car. This isn’t a great neighborhood and the heat would kill her if the AC turned off for some reason.

The woman who answers my knock is thin and weathered, with gray hair pulled back in a ponytail that reveals too much scalp.

"You're not a reporter," she says. It's not a question.

"No. I'm Claire Matthews. I had a baby at Coachella Valley Medical a little bit ago. You were my nurse."

Her face changes, becomes more guarded. She glances at Eva in my arms, then back at my face.

"I don't remember every patient."

"But you remember me."

She's quiet for a long moment, studying me with those faded eyes. The wind chimes fill the silence.

"I suppose you'd better come in."

The inside of the trailer is dim and cluttered, but surprisingly cool. An ancient air conditioning unit rattles in the back wall. The television is tuned to a game show, contestants spinning a giant wheel while the audience cheers.

June turns off the TV and gestures toward a small dinette table covered with crossword puzzle books and pill bottles. I sit carefully, putting the car seat with sleeping Eva down next to me. I try not to look at the stacks of papers and boxes that fill every available space.

"You said you don't remember every patient," I begin.

"I don't."

"But you remember me."

She's quiet again, hands folded in her lap. Her fingers are stained yellow from cigarettes, and she smells like tobacco and something medicinal.

"You were ...upset," she says finally. "More than most. Kept asking about the baby. Where she was. If she was okay. We had to sedate you."

My heart starts to race. "Why?"

"You were hysterical. Wouldn't calm down. Kept saying things that didn't make sense."

"What kind of things?"

June looks uncomfortable now, glancing toward the door like she's calculating how quickly she could get me to leave.

"You kept saying you couldn't lose another one. That they promised you this time would be different."

The words hit me like cold water. I remember fragments of that night, pieces that float up from the sedative haze. The feeling of loss so profound it felt like drowning. But another one? What did I mean by another one?

"Do you remember what room I was in?"

"Room 2C. But we moved you partway through the night."

"Why?"

"There was a leak in the ceiling. Water damage. We had to relocate several patients."

I lean forward and Eva shifted in her seat. "What room did you move me to?"

June hesitates. "3B, I think. Maybe 3C. It was a busy night."

"June." I make my voice as steady as I can. "You were there. You remember me. You know that wasn't my baby. "

The words hang in the air between us. The wind chimes outside grow louder.

June stands abruptly and walks to one of the plastic storage bins stacked against the wall. She rummages through papers, muttering under her breath, before pulling out a manila folder.

"I shouldn't have kept these," she says, returning to the table. "But sometimes things don't feel right, you know? Sometimes you need proof that things happened the way they happened."

She opens the folder and slides a photocopied document across the table. At the top, in bold letters: EMERGENCY CUSTODIAL REASSIGNMENT.

My name is typed neatly in the patient field. Below that, a signature that's supposed to be mine.

I stare at it, my vision blurring slightly. The handwriting is similar to mine, but not quite right. The loops are too perfect, the slant too consistent. It's like someone traced my signature from another document.

"That's not my handwriting," I whisper.

June nods slowly. "I always thought so too. But what could I do? It came from upstairs. Legal department. They told us to follow orders and not ask questions."

"What does Emergency custodial reassignment mean?"

"Means the baby you held ... might've already been assigned to someone else. Legally speaking. "

The room feels like it's tilting. I grip the edge of the table with my free hand, trying to steady myself.

"There's something else," June says quietly. She reaches into the folder again and pulls out a hospital photograph. The kind they take for medical records.

It shows a baby swaddled in a blue and white striped blanket. Not the plain pink, brown-trim one. Not the rosebud-embroidered one my mother made. This baby looks different. Smaller, maybe. It's hard to tell.

"Who is this?" I ask.

"I don't know. I’m supposed to have this photo."

I study the image, trying to make sense of it. The baby's face is partially obscured by the blanket, but something about the features seems wrong. It’s not Eva, but she looks familiar.

"How many babies were born that night?"

June shifts uncomfortably. "Three, maybe four. It was busy. There was some kind of emergency with one of the mothers. A lot of screaming, security called. Administration was involved."

"What kind of emergency?"

"I don't know all the details. But someone was very upset about their baby being taken. There was confusion about which baby belonged to which mother."

The trailer suddenly feels too small, the air too thin. I stand up quickly, Eva fussing as I jostle her.

"I need to go."

June watches me gather my purse. “Can I take this?” I ask about the photo and the photocopied form? ”

She nods.

"Mrs. Matthews," she calls as I reach the door. "I don't know what happened that night. But whatever it was, it wasn't your fault. You were drugged. You couldn't consent to anything."

I pause with my hand on the doorknob. "Then whose fault was it?"

"I think you already know the answer to that."

Outside, the wind chimes ring louder in the wind. I plug Eva’s car seat back into the backseat, my hands shaking as I fumble with the buckles. She's crying now, a thin, desperate sound that cuts through the desert air.

As I start the car, I glance back at the trailer. June is standing in the doorway, watching me leave. She raises one hand in what might be a wave or a warning.

I drive away with the photo on the passenger seat beside me, the face of a baby I don't recognize staring up at the roof of my car. Three or four babies born that night. Three or four mothers. But only one emergency custodial reassignment form.

I glance at the copy of my file in the passenger seat again — the words EMERGENCY CUSTODIAL REASSIGNMENT practically pulsing through the paper. And then I remember what June said, almost like a throwaway:

“Yours wasn’t the only file marked red.”

I didn’t ask her what she meant in the moment. I was too focused on Eva, too rattled by the photo. But now, replaying it, I hear something different in her tone. Like she wasn’t just talking about that night. Like she was talking about other nights. Other mothers.

And somehow, I ended up with a signature that isn't mine on a document I don't remember signing, holding a baby that might not be mine, while another mother grieves a child she says was stolen.

The desert highway stretches ahead of me, heat mirages shimmering like false water. In the rearview mirror, I can see the dust cloud kicked up by my car, obscuring everything behind me.

But I can't outrun the question that's been growing in my mind since I saw that photo:

Was that my real baby?