“I am coming now,” she repeated, in the voice that had ended every argument since my childhood.
After I hung up, Ethan watched me.
“Marianne is coming?”
“Yes.”
“She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
He raised one eyebrow.
“She called me a spineless cardigan once.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
“She was being polite.”
He almost smiled too.
Then his pager buzzed.
He read the message and stood.
“Records found something.”
My pulse jumped.
“What?”
“I need to go downstairs.”
“Why?”
“Because the access request wasn’t made online.”
He looked toward the door.
“It was made in person.”
I stared at him.
“By your mother?”
“The signature says Vivian Chen.”
My mouth went dry.
“But identification was verified under another name.”
“What name?”
He looked back at me.
“Marianne Lewis.”
For a second, the words did not make sense.
Then they made too much sense.
“That’s impossible,” I said.
“I know.”
“My aunt would never—”
“I believe you.”
The speed of his answer mattered again.
But belief did not change the facts.
Someone had used my aunt’s name.
Someone had brought Vivian’s name into my chart.
Someone had known enough about me, my pregnancy, and my emergency contact to twist all three together.
“Go,” I said.
He hesitated.
“Go find out.”
He left, and I lay there staring at the bassinet where Maya slept under the soft hospital blanket.
My daughter had been alive in the world for less than two hours, and already the past had reached for her.
I thought of Vivian in the lobby.
I thought of my aunt driving through the dark toward Hartford.
