“Sweetheart, why are you so afraid of your sister?”
He grabbed my wrist tightly.
“Because she isn’t my sister,” he repeated. “The hospital gave you the wrong baby.”
A chill ran through my body.
I tried to stay calm.
“Why do you think that?”
Max glanced toward our bedroom to make sure Daniel was still asleep.
Then he leaned close and whispered:
“When Dad took me downstairs to get some juice, I came back by myself because he was talking to someone.”
I stared at him.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“I saw a nurse take our baby out of your room. She was carrying another baby too.”
My heart started pounding.
“What happened next?”
“She went into a room at the end of the hallway,” he said. “Then she came back out with only one baby.”
I kept telling myself he must have misunderstood what he saw.
Then he said the words that made my blood run cold.
“Our baby had a little red mark near her ear,” he whispered. “This one doesn’t.”
I rushed into the nursery and switched on the lamp.
For the first time since leaving the hospital, I carefully examined the baby’s ear.
The birthmark was gone.
Then I noticed something else.
Hidden beneath the blanket, around her tiny ankle, was a hospital identification bracelet with a different last name.
I stared at it until the letters blurred before my eyes.
Baby Girl Thompson.
That wasn’t our last name.
Our daughter’s bracelet should have read:
Baby Girl Carter.
For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe. The baby stirred beneath the blanket and let out a tiny sigh, completely unaware that the name on her ankle had just turned our entire world upside down.
I woke Daniel immediately.
