Chapter 4 - The Hat
A few minutes later the charge nurse came in, the delivery nurse right behind her. The charge nurse said her name was Carol.
"Walk me through it," she said.
Marcus told her everything—the mark, the shape, the exact spot on the shoulder.
Carol turned to the delivery nurse. "Do you remember a birthmark on this baby?"
The woman looked from Marcus to me. "Yes."
My heartbeat seemed to stop.
"Where was it?" Carol asked.
"Left side. Close to the collarbone."
Nobody spoke for a moment.
"Did this baby leave the delivery room?" I asked.
"For the standard assessment," the delivery nurse said. "Down the hall."
"Were there other newborns in there at the same time?"
She hesitated. "One other. I think."
Carol looked at her hard. "You think?"
"It was a busy night. I'd have to pull the log."
Carol checked the ankle band without taking it off, then flipped through the chart. Her face shifted—just a little, but I caught it. She stepped out into the hallway.
Through the half-open door I heard her voice go low and flat. "Nobody moves either infant until every band and every record is verified. Understood?"
Either infant.
Marcus heard it too. He sat down beside me. "There's another one."
I didn't say anything.
Ten minutes later Carol came back with a hospital administrator, a tired man with a lanyard and a clipboard.
"There was a second baby girl in the assessment nursery," Carol said. "Born a little after your daughter."
"Where is she now?" Marcus asked.
"With her parents. Down the hall."
"Do they know?"
"Someone's talking to them right now."
I looked down at the baby asleep on my chest. "And the ankle bands?"
"The band on this infant matches your records," the administrator said.
"That's not what I asked."
Carol was quiet for a second. "No. It's not."
The administrator started explaining that they'd need to review transfer records and security footage, but I wasn't really hearing him.
"Bring the other parents in here," I said.
"We'd need their consent before—"
The door pushed open behind him.
A woman sat in a wheelchair in the hallway, both hands white-knuckled on the armrests. A man stood behind her, holding a wrapped-up newborn.
"I told you something was wrong," she said to him. "I told you."
He looked like he might be sick.
Carol moved toward them. "Bethany, this is the other family."
Bethany looked at me. Then she looked at the baby in my arms, and her eyes filled instantly.
"What did you notice?" I asked her.
She swallowed hard. "The hat."
Marcus frowned. "What hat?"
"My mother knitted a pink cap for her. It has a little bow. The nurses put it on right after she was born." She pointed at the bundle in her husband's arms. "When they brought her back to my room, she had a plain hospital cap on instead. I asked, and everyone said someone probably swapped it during the bath."
"I told her she was overthinking it," her husband said, staring at the floor. "I told her she was just wiped out."
"I thought I was, too," Bethany said. "I thought I'd remembered it wrong."
Marcus stood up slowly. "Can I ask you something?"
Bethany nodded.
Her husband's arms tightened around the baby.
"Can you check her left shoulder? Near the collarbone."
Nobody moved.
Then Bethany reached over and eased the blanket back herself.
Just below the baby's left collarbone was a small, dark oval. Like a thumbprint pressed into wet paint.
Marcus made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob. "There. That's it. That's her."
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My vision blurred. Every single part of me wanted to reach for that child.
I didn't. Not yet.
