Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Photograph
The hospital had not declared me dead. That was the first thing the records director made clear when I arrived with my attorney the following morning.
"An administrative system imported the wrong patient status," Dr. Selene Walsh said, uncomfortable behind her desk. "It was corrected within two days."
"Who made the correction?" my attorney asked.
"We are reviewing the access log."
I had retained Naomi Price the week I discovered Leo's birth date. She was a family-law attorney, not a miracle worker. Her office was above a dry cleaner, and she had warned me that even a strong biological claim could become a brutal custody dispute if I took reckless shortcuts.
Yesterday I'd taken one anyway.
"There are two separate problems," Naomi said as we rode the elevator down. "What happened in the hospital, and what rights you have today. We cannot assume the second follows automatically from the first."
"He called me Mommy."
"That's important to you. It doesn't establish parentage in court."
I hated how reasonable she sounded. I also knew she was protecting Leo from another adult who believed love made every decision permissible.
Outside, Chicago's wind drove grit into the seams of my coat. I went home to my rented apartment and opened a shoebox I had avoided for six years. Inside were the admission bracelet, the discharge sheet, and a photograph taken by an exhausted nurse after my delivery. The baby's face was half hidden against my skin. One tiny fist gripped the blanket.
On the back someone had written: M. Reyes and son. 2:14 a.m.
A message arrived from Vincent at 1:07 p.m.
My attorney would like to meet. Leo asked why you left. I told him the adults have something important to settle and it isn't his fault.
I read that sentence three times. It was the first useful thing either of us had done since the bag hit the stairs.
At our meeting, Vincent brought an envelope thick with copies. He did not bring his mother or Camille. He did bring a family lawyer named Judith Bell, who listened without interrupting while I explained how the hospital had told me my son was gone.
Vincent placed a notarized consent form on the table. The signature at the bottom was mine, except it wasn't. Someone had copied the way I crossed my y's from an old internship agreement. The notary stamp belonged to a man named Gerald Pike, whose commission, Naomi later determined, had expired months before the date on the form.
"What was this used for?" I asked.
"The document supported an emergency custody petition," Judith said. "Vincent was recognized as Leo's father. A temporary order gave him custody while the court considered the mother's absence. A subsequent order dealt with parental responsibility. We need the entire court file before drawing conclusions."
"I was in a hospital bed," I said. "I never knew about a petition."
"The record says you were served," Judith replied. "That is one of the things we'll verify."
Vincent took off his wedding ring. It was strange seeing the pale band on his finger. He wasn't married now; the ring had belonged to his father, who'd died four years earlier. Vincent rolled it once on the table.
"When did you realize Leo might be yours?" he asked.
"A former maternity nurse found me last spring. She'd reported an irregular transfer at St. Agnes. She showed me an internal list with a baby born at 2:14, transferred to a Bellini account. I didn't believe her at first."
"What's her name?"
"Evelyn Park. She lost her job after making the report."
Judith made a note. "We need to speak to her."
I pulled the photograph from my pocket and turned it toward Vincent. He stared at the baby, then at the back where someone had written the time.
"My mother's family album has this same picture," he whispered.
"That's impossible."
"She cropped you out."
He took out his phone, found an old image, and laid it beside mine. Same folds in the blanket. Same fist. Same rectangle of fluorescent light on the far wall. In the Bellini album, only the infant remained. A nurse's handwriting had been cut away.
No one spoke for a long moment.
Vincent finally said, "I need to show you something else."
He opened another picture. It showed my hospital room, empty except for the neatly made bed and a bouquet of yellow flowers.
"My mother sent this the morning I was told you'd gone," he said. "She said it proved you'd chosen to leave."
May you like
In the mirror behind the bed, barely visible, was the reflection of the woman holding the camera.
Camille Laurent.
