“Your trip’s as doomed as Han Solo’s trip in A New Hope, when he was supposed to transport Luke, Leia, and Obi-Wan to Alderaan.”
She grinned. “I admire the blunt way you just shoved that Han Solo reference into the discussion.”
“I used force instead of skill.”
“I’ll have to think of skillful ways to reference aviation in conversation. Because of you, I read a book on the basics. Thrust, lift, drag. I was instantly enamored. I love physics.”
“What’s not to love about physics?”
“Nothing,” she said earnestly.
His soap smelled so wonderful that she’d like to stockpile candles in that fragrance. All of a sudden, she could hear her pulse in her ears—
The click of high heels intruded. Jenna broke the bubble that had enclosed Leah and Sebastian by commenting on her preference for coffee beans from Tanzania.
The three of them made their way to the administrative offices. This time, they were shown into a boardroom. Leah’s group arranged themselves on one side of the table. Donna McKelvey and the director of medical records sat on the opposite side.
After a brief conversation, the director produced an army green file folder containing Baby Girl Brookside’s original records. At Jenna’s request, he’d also made photocopies of the file and scanned images of it onto a flash drive—both of which Leah could take home with her.
“On behalf of the hospital,” Donna said to Leah, “I’d like to apologize once again for what happened to you. I sincerely wish you the best.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you’d like in order to look through the original paperwork.”
The hospital employees and Jenna excused themselves, leaving Leah alone with Sebastian in a room that smelled of new carpeting. The only sound: air whirring through vents.
“And you?” Leah asked Sebastian. “Do you have other commitments? If so, I don’t want you to feel obligated to stay.”
His eyes flashed a gray as lustrous as moonstones. “I’m sticking around. I only have one commitment this afternoon. And it’s to you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Leah pulled the original file toward her. Chest tightening with expectation, she opened it.
The papers within had turned beige and brittle with age. A smattering of mold splayed across the top right edge. She positioned the first two sheets side by side.
Her biological mother’s name: Trina Brookside.
Eagerly, she read the remaining information. As far as Leah could tell, things had gone well with Trina’s labor, but after the baby had been delivered . . . She narrowed her eyes, trying to understand. “I’m following the doctor’s notes right up until the baby was born.”
“The staff in the delivery room knew that Trina was diabetic, and they were prepared for the complications that can cause,” Sebastian explained. “As soon as the baby was delivered, they noted that she had cyanosis, which means she was bluish in color. She was taken to the nursery and given oxygen. Her condition improved quickly, and the pediatrician on staff concluded that she was healthy. Essentially, she just needed a little time to get acclimated to life outside the womb.”
Leah’s brain constructed a chain of events. “Erica Montgomery suffered placental abruption, so they put her under and performed an emergency C-section. Her baby girl was born at 10:10 a.m. with a rapid heartbeat. They took her directly to the nursery for treatment.” Leah pointed to the paper. “It says here that Trina Brookside gave birth to her baby eighteen minutes later, at 10:28. Trina’s baby girl was also taken to the nursery. Is it likely that either a rapid heartbeat or cyanosis could have caused problems down the road for the babies?”
“No. Both babies had issues that, once stabilized, were no longer of concern.”
“I’m guessing it was during the interval when the babies were being treated in the nursery that they were switched.”
“That would make sense.”
“As soon as the babies were well, they must have been sent to the wrong mothers. Erica’s baby was taken to Trina. And I, Trina’s baby, was taken to Erica. Who do you think might have been responsible for the switch? A doctor? Nurses?”
“Most likely nurses. They’re the ones responsible for transporting babies between rooms.”
Leah moved the pages to the side, revealing two new pages. Her eyes scanned the lines of text. Trina and Erica had stayed in the same wing of the same hospital for two days, both of them bonding with each other’s baby, before Trina had gone home.
Trina had been twenty-seven years old at the time. Married. This pregnancy was her first. Her address: 11482 Riverchase Road, Atlanta, Georgia. Ten numbers had been written clearly and decisively onto the line beside Phone Number. Those numbers practically blinked like a neon sign. What if she dialed that number and her biological mother answered?
Surely, her mother would not answer. This number was a landline from The Time Before Everyone Had a Cell Phone, which meant that Trina probably wasn’t using the same number now that she’d used then. It was also a stretch, but perhaps not as large of a stretch, to think Trina might still live at the house on Riverchase Road. As soon as Leah left here, she’d drive there. Just to look.
She uncovered the next two pages. One was a birth certificate. Katrina Elizabeth Wallace Brookside and her husband, Jonathan Delaney Brookside, had named their daughter Sophie Grace.
Trina and Sophie. Leah rolled the unfamiliar names around in her brain. She tried on Leah Brookside for size—except, she’d never have been Leah Brookside. Had things gone differently, she’d have lived her life as Sophie Grace Brookside.
The next page divulged information about Trina’s pregnancy, including the fact that her blood type was B, which meant her husband’s blood type must be A, like Leah. It also meant that Sophie’s possible blood types—B and O—would not raise any red flags with her or her parents because those types could naturally occur from Trina and Jonathan.
Unless Sophie did DNA testing like Leah had done, she’d have no reason to discover that she was not related to her mother and father.
The next page showed a photo of baby Sophie. The child in this photo was Erica Montgomery’s baby. Yet Leah was looking at a face that Erica and Todd had never had the opportunity to look upon.
The infant had slit her eyes open as if she found the light of the world to be an unwelcome assault. Her lips formed a pink rosebud. Her eyes were dark, as was her dusting of hair.
She looked just like Dylan had when he’d been a newborn.
Sebastian had never felt such an overwhelming pull toward a woman in his life. He knew why he felt the pull. Leah was brainy, kind, at peace with herself, challenging, funny. He loved that she said random things about flowers serving as a metaphor for life and melons shaped like rhomboids.
What he didn’t know: Why, of all people, did the woman he felt this way about have to be the woman Ben loved?
After leaving the hospital, they came to a stop at Leah’s car, parked in an outdoor lot.
She dashed a piece of hair away from her face. “My head is spinning with everything I just learned.”
“I can imagine.” He wished he had something more comforting to offer. “Are you going to contact Trina and Jonathan Brookside?”