She ran straight
complained.
“Sorry, darling.”
“You’re pulling too hard.”
I loosened my grip.
“Better?”
“Yep!”
Nora stood nearby watching.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
I finished tying the ribbons.
Ellie jumped from the chair and hurried to the hallway mirror.
“Perfect!”
Then she ran to show Tom.
For a moment, Nora and I sat silently.
Finally, she asked the question we’d both been avoiding.
“Are you going to take her away from us?”
I looked toward the hallway.
Ellie was laughing with Tom.
“I don’t know what happens legally,” I answered.
Nora’s eyes filled.
“But I’m not going to frighten her or make her feel like she’s losing the people she loves.”
My sister began crying.
“I’m so scared, Claire.”
“So am I.”
She looked at me.
“I waited eight years to become a mother.”
“I know.”
“And now the little girl I love is your daughter.”
I looked down at
the hairbrush.
“I’ve waited five years to learn that my daughter is alive.”
Neither of us spoke.
There was no easy answer.
No simple way to make the years disappear.
But we both loved the same child.
And we knew that whatever happened next had to begin with protecting her.
***
Two days later, our attorney called with new information.
Investigators had identified an alarming discrepancy in the hospital’s neonatal records.
Two infants had apparently been assigned identification numbers that were later mixed up during a transfer.
One infant had been recorded as deceased.
Another had entered emergency protective care with incomplete identifying information.
Ellie’s earliest welfare record carried the identification number originally assigned to Lucy.
