Whose Baby Part 2

He knew and wouldn't let himself see the sentence that began, "Because of unusual circ.u.mstances, the mother of a girl born on the same day as your daughter in this hospital has found that she has been raising a child who is not a biological relation to her." The letter continued by raising the possibility that two of the six baby girls born that day had been switched in the nursery. Administrators were asking that parents agree to blood tests to determine whether this was, indeed, what had happened. He was particularly urged, because his child had been born within twenty minutes of the girl in question.

When Adam did, finally, makehimself see, and when he grasped all that this could mean, anger roared through his veins, darkening his vision.

Could they really be so incompetent as to make a mistake of this magnitude? Babies were supposed to be tagged immediately so this wasn't possible! Hadn't they put a wristband on Jenny Rose while she was still b.l.o.o.d.y, still giving her first thin cry?

He hadn't seen. Adam bent his head suddenly and gripped the edge of the kitchen counter as panic whipped around the perimeter of his anger, as if it were only the eye of a hurricane.

They might not have followed the usual procedures, because the circ.u.mstances were so unusual. Respecting his grief, nurses might have carried the infant girl straight to the nursery before taking the Apgar and banding her wrist.

Even then his anger revived how could they screw up so royally? What did they do, leave babies lying around like Lego blocks in a preschool? Had the nurses wandered by sometime later and said, "Oh, yeah, this one must be the Landry kid?"

But the panic was more powerful than the anger, because his basic nature wouldn't let him be less than logical. If a mistake had been made that night, his daughter had all too likely been part of it. No mother or father had been hovering over her; she had never been placed at her mother's breast, and she wasn't held by her father until hours after her birth. Adam inhaled sharply, swearing. Hours? G.o.d. He hadn't thought about Jenny Rose until the next day, when his grief had dulled and he'd remembered that his wife had left a trust to him.

Only, by that time, the baby that had been lifted, blood-slick, from Jennifer's belly might have accidentally been switched with another little girl born the same hour.

Where hadher parents been?he raged. How could they not have paid more attention? Why hadn't they noticed the switch?

He breathed heavily through his mouth. The microwave was beeping.

"Daddy?" Jenny Rose was saying from the kitchen doorway, the single word murmured around her thumb.

Think, he commanded himself. Then,Don'tthink. Not now.

"Yeah, Petunia?" He sounded almost normal.

She gave a hiccuping giggle. "Rose, Daddy! Not Petunia."

It was an old joke. "Oh, yeah," he agreed. "I knew you were some flower or other."

"Daddy, I'm hungry."

"Lucky for you, dinner's done." He hadn't put on a vegetable, but right now he didn't care.

He dished up the ca.s.serole in bowls and carried them out to the family room where he joined Rose in

watchingTigger and Pooh Bear try to patch upEeyore's problems, in their b.u.mbling, well-meaning way.

Like the d.a.m.ned hospital officials.

Why contact me? Adam wondered. Was that mother dissatisfied with the child she'd been given? Did

she want to trade her in for another one? Fresh anger buffeted him. Wasn't his biological child good enough for her?

Not just his. Jennifer's. That's when it hit him: In this other home, there might be a little girl whodid have Jenny's pointed chin and quirky smile and ability to flit from idea to idea as if the last was forgotten as soon as the temptation of the next presented itself.

He groaned, barely m.u.f.fling the sound in time to prevent Rose from wanting to know if Daddy hurt. Could she kiss it and make it better?

His Rose. By G.o.d, n.o.body was taking her from him.

But. Jennifer had left their baby in trust to him, and he might have lost her. He hadn't even looked at her.

If only he'd seen her tiny features, he would have known, later, when they handed him Rose.

He made his decision then, as simply as that, although not without fear greater than any he'd felt since the phone call telling him his wife had been in a car accident. n.o.body would take his Jenny Rose from him. But he had to let her be tested, and if she wasn't his daughter, wasn't Jennifer's... Well, he had to see the child who was. Find out what he could do to make her life right, from now on. Earn the trust he'd been given. * * *

Adam didn't take his Rosebud to that hospital. He didn't trust them, although he never defined the sins he thought them willing to commit. He only knew he had to protect Rose. So he took her to her own pediatrician for DNA testing. And then Adam went to the hospital with the results in his hand.

The results that had told him Jenny Rose was neither his daughter nor Jennifer's.

There, he listened to repeated expressions ofregret, saw in their eyes the intense anxiety that meant officials had lawsuits dancing in their heads at night like poisonous sugarplums. He didn't quiet their fears.

Hadn't made up his mind about a lawsuit. They deserved to pay until they hurt. But he didn't want or need blood money. And no justice he could exact on them would make up for what they had done to him and Rose. To his other daughter. And perhaps, to Rose's biological parents, although it wasn't yet clear to him whether they shared his agony, or were hoping to steal Jenny Rose.

They talked of an investigation. They were interviewing nurses, although it was taking time, they said, sweating. Several on duty that night no longer worked there, or even lived inPortland. But babies were always banded in the birthingroom, that was hospital policy. Somebody would surely remember why, on this occasion, policy hadn't been followed.

Adam knew why it hadn't, in the case of his daughter. Although it should have been. How could the nurses and doctors not have realized how doubly precious his daughter would be to him, once the lines on the monitors flattened, once the machines were unplugged and the illusion of life was taken from his wife? Seeing his grief, how could they have been so careless?

And how the h.e.l.l could two mistakes so monumentalhave been made on the same night?

The other mother the hospital's representatives cleared their throats Jenny Rose's biological mother, that is, had been hemorrhaging. Doctors had feared for her life. Had been concentrating on saving her. Thus, in this case, too, the baby had been an afterthought. Nurses had hustled her away, so she didn't distract the doctors. Neither parent had looked at her; the father had been intent on his wife,and she had been semiconscious. The mistake was inexcusable, but ahem they could understand how it had been made. Or, at least, how it had been set up, they said. Two ba.s.sinets next to each other in the nursery, two baby girls born within twenty minutes of each other, both brown haired. And newborns could look so much alike.

He vented his rage at this point and they quailed. But what good did his rage do? What satisfaction could he take in frightening a bunch of lawyers and administrators who hadn't been there that night, probably hardly knew what wing of the hospital housed the delivery rooms or the nursery?

None.

"The future," they suggested tentatively, and he bit back further rage even he recognized as naked fear. n.o.body had said,She'snot your daughter. It won't do you any good to go to court and fight for custody. The biological parents will win, given that this situation is not their fault any more than it's yours. But they were thinking it.

"All right," he said abruptly, voice harsh. "I'll meet with these other parents."

It would be only the mother, he was told. She was divorced, and the biological father was not at this point interested in custody. She was anxious to talk to him, they said. Could he please bring a photograph of Jenny Rose?

The hospital set it up for the next afternoon. Each parent could bring an attorney. Adam chose not to, although he knew it might be foolish. Right now, he just wanted to see what he was facing. He expected the worst.

The woman had begun this horror in a quest to find her natural daughter, apparently never minding the cost to the innocent child she hadraised .

Adam fully expected to detest her.

A nearly sleepless night followed a half-a-dozen others. He'd forgotten how to sleep, except in nightmarish bursts from which he awakened to the sound of Rosebud screaming. But when he rolled from bed and stumbled into the hall, he invariably realized the sobs, the terror, were in his head. She slept peacefully, he would see, standing in the doorway to her room, able to make out her round, gentle face in the soft glow from her Pooh Bear night-light. He hadn't told her about any of this. She didn't know that a woman she'd never met wanted to tear her away from her home and her daddy. He might not be the best parent in the world, he thought in anguish, but she trusted him. He'd given her that much.

He left her that morning at the Cottage Path Preschool and let her cling longer than usual before he handed her, crying, to a day-care worker. NavigatingPortland's old freeways like an automaton, Adam arrived at the hospital early. His eyes burned from lack of sleep, but he otherwise felt numb. He wanted to see her before she saw him, before she knew who he was. As he locked his Lexus and walked toward the entrance, he searched the parking lot for any woman who could possibly be the mother of a child the age of his daughter. Daughters. Of Jenny Rose and ... Sh.e.l.ly. Sh.e.l.lySchoening .

But of course he was denied any kind of anonymous entry. A receptionist was poised in wait to usher him onto an elevator with murmurs and more regrets and an "Oh, dear" when she got a good look at his face just before the elevator doors shut.

A lawyer took over when the doors sprang open on the third floor. "The conference room is just down this way."

They were so d.a.m.ned helpful, Adam was reminded of an old football trick: help your opponent up as fast as you knocked him down. Never let him rest.

The carpet up here was plush, the plants glossy,the artwork hanging on the papered walls elegant. This part of the hospital was completely divorced from the trenches, where babies were born and surgeries performed, where death happened. Up here they knew bills and statistics. He could have been in a law firm.

The conference room was smallish, holding one long table and eight chairs upholstered inan un.o.btrusive oatmeal. The air had that hushed quality that told him the room was well soundproofed. A place where grieving parents and spouses could be persuaded to sign away their loved ones' body parts. He might have been here, back then. He didn't remember.

Not even this air could m.u.f.fle the anxiety crackling from his escort. It warned him before he saw her, sitting alone at the table, facing the door.

This slender woman with curly auburn hair had also wanted to be here early; wanted to see him before he saw her. She, too, clutched at any minor advantage.

This round, she'd won.

Poleaxed, he was barely aware of walking to the other side of the table and pulling out a chair. Sitting down, gripping the wooden arms, and looking a hungry, shocked fill.

She was Jenny Rose's mother. He would have recognized her in a crowd. A round, pleasant face, pretty rather than beautiful, a scattering of tiny freckles on a small nose, a curve of forehead and a way of tilting her head to one side ... all were Rose. And that hair. G.o.d, that hair. Shiny, untamable waves, brown lit by a brushfire. He'd shampooed that hair, eased a brush through it,struggled to braid it. Kissed it.

"What," he asked hoa.r.s.ely, "do you want?"

Chapter 3.

He strode in, just as she'd feared, a big angry man with a hard face. From the moment he sat down, she felt his hostility like porcupine quills jabbing and hooking her skin.

"What do you want?" he asked brusquely.

No preambles. No introductions. No "we're in a tough spot, aren't we?"

Through her exhaustion and dread,Lynnsaid, "I want this never to have happened."

His eyes narrowed a flicker.

Lynnhad completely forgotten they weren't alone in the room until one of the lawyers cleared his throat. "Ms.Chanak , let me introduce Adam Landry. Mr. Landry, LynnChanak ."

His mouth thinned, but he gave a brief, reluctant nod in acknowledgment of the formal introduction.

She swallowed. "Mr. Landry."

He looked past her. "I'd prefer to talk to Ms.Chanak alone. If-" the coldly commanding gaze touched her "-she doesn't mind."

In the flurry of objection, she caught only one phrase, which annoyed her unreasonably.

"The hospital's interest is in seeing us come up with an amicable future plan." She'd memorized that phrase: amicable future plan. Was there such a thing? "Only we can decide on the future of our daughters. We need to get to know each other. Please."

She had hoped, heaven help her, for approval. He only waited.

The lawyers offered their intervention if it was needed. Adam Landry said nothing.Lynnstared at her hands. After a moment, the two men backed out, shutting the door behind them. The silence in their wake was as absolute as any she'd ever heard. The courage that had gotten her this far deserted her. She couldn't look up.

Her nerves had reached the screaming point when Adam Landry said at last, "Perhaps I phrased my question incorrectly. Why did you start this? Did you suspect your daughter..." he stumbled, "Sh.e.l.ly, wasn't yours?"

"No." At last she lifted her head, letting him see her tumult. "No. Never. It was my ex-husband. He ... he didn't want to pay the child support anymore. He claimed I must have had an affair. That she wasn't his child. But it wasn't true! I never..." She bit her lip and said more quietly, "I wouldn't do something like that. So I took Sh.e.l.ly to have a blood test to prove to Brian that she was his. Only..."

"She wasn't."

"No. Which meant-" she took a deep breath "-that she wasn't mine, either. Unless you believe..."

"In immaculate conception?" His voice was dry.

"Yes. And ... and I don't." She tried for a smile and failed. "I wasn't going to tell anybody. Only, then I started worrying about the other little girl. The one who was really my daughter."

The dreams wouldn't impress him, not this man. He reminded her too much of the lawyers. His gray suit cost more than she spent on food and mortgage in a month or more. His dark hair was clipped short, but by a stylist, not a barber. She could easily picture his big, capable hands gripping the leather-covered wheel of an expensive sedan, or resting on the keyboard of a laptop computer. Not changing diapers, or sifting through the sand for a seash.e.l.l, or brushing away tears.

Who was raising Jenny Rose Landry? A grandmother? A nanny? Anxiety crimped her chest.

Softly she finished, "I wanted to be sure she was all right. Loved."

"And that's it. That's all you want." His tone said he didn't believe her for a second.

Lynndidn't blame him for his skepticism. Already, if she was being honest, she'd have to admit that she wouldn't be satisfied with that modest goal.

"I don't know." She held his gaze, although she quaked inside. "I'm not sure anymore. I suppose I'd like to meet her. And ... perhaps get acquainted. Now that I know she doesn't have a mother."

"What makes you so sure she needs one?" Landry stood abruptly and shoved his chair back. Looming over her, hands planted on the table, he said tautly, "Is it so impossible to believe I'm an adequate parent?"

Her breath caught. She'd obviously struck a raw nerve. "No. Of course not. I'm a single parent myself, and I think I'm doing a fine job." Naturally she would say that; did she really expect him to believe her? More uncertainly, she continued, "It's just that..." For all her rehearsing, she didn't know how to express these inchoate emotions, these wants, these needs, these fears. "She's my daughter,"Lynnfinished simply.

A muscle jerked in his cheek. "You suddenly want to be a mother tomy daughter."

"Aren't you curious, too?" How timid she sounded! No, perhapshopeful was the word. Could it be that he didn't want Sh.e.l.ly, wouldn't try to reclaim his birth daughter? That she'd never had to worry at all?

He swung away in a jerky motion and took two steps to the window. Gazing out at what?the parking lot? he killed her hopes in a flat, unrevealing voice. "Yes. I'm curious. Why do you think I'm here?"

Lynnwhispered, "Is that all? You're just ... curious?"

He faced her, anger blazing in his eyes. "My wife died and never held her baby. Now I find out that neither have I. Does 'curious' cover my reaction? Probably not. But we have to start somewhere."

He sounded reasonable and yet scared her to death. She'd hoped for a completely different kind of man. Perhaps a car mechanic, struggling to make ends meet, grease under his fingernails and kindness in his eyes. Or a small-business owner. Someone like her. Ordinary. Not a formidable, wealthy man used to having his way and able to pay to get it. Someone she could never beat, if it came to a fight.

Make sure it doesn't, she told herself, trying to quiet the renewed panic. You can work something out. Go slowly. He may not be that interested in parenting even one girl, much less two.

"I brought pictures," she said tentatively. "Of Sh.e.l.ly."