by Becky Wade
“I don’t know how I can without revealing that I’ve talked to you about your dating life.”
“An excellent point. However, I would hate for him to put his dating life on hold on my account, seeing as how I’m not a viable option.”
“I think you should explain your position to him.”
“Without provocation? He’s never asked me out. It would read as presumptuous, would it not, if I suddenly announced my dating policy to him, absent of cause?”
“Have you considered the possibility, Leah, that you simply haven’t dated the right man yet?”
“Ms. Montgomery and Dr. Grant?” the receptionist said.
They rose, and the woman led them to Donna McKelvey’s corner office, which was no doubt the envy of her co-workers. The sky backlit her tall leather desk chair like a sunrise behind a throne.
Donna greeted them with firm handshakes. She wore a suit jacket, a red silk top, and a scarf patterned with red, white, yellow, and orange. Likely in her mid- to late-fifties, Donna had a stocky build, a pleasantly angular face, and a dark blond power bob. Had she been auditioning for the role of First Lady, Leah would have cast her at once.
They started with small talk, during which Donna interacted with Sebastian in a way that indicated that she’d like, very much, to poach him from Beckett Memorial.
Sebastian cut to the heart of the matter once they took their seats. “We scheduled this meeting today,” he told Donna, “because Leah was born here.”
The older woman turned an expectant look on Leah.
“I recently submitted my DNA for testing in order to gain insight into my genealogy,” Leah explained. “I learned that I’m not the biological daughter of either of my parents. I think that I was switched at birth here twenty-eight years ago.”
Donna’s smile slipped.
“Here’s the data I collected.” Leah removed a large envelope from her purse. Inside, she’d placed copies of all the relevant documents and DNA tests. She set the envelope on Donna’s desk.
“Occasionally, adoptive parents don’t inform their children that they’re adopted,” Donna said.
“That may be, but that’s not what happened in my situation,” Leah replied. “I called my mother after receiving the DNA test results. She’s always believed me to be her biological daughter. She was so certain the test was faulty that she encouraged me to take it again. Which I did. And now I’m here.”
Donna probably hadn’t been affiliated with this hospital at the time of Leah’s birth, so the fact that Leah had been given to the Montgomery family couldn’t reflect poorly on Donna personally. Yet it could reflect very poorly on the hospital as a whole—of which Donna was now the head.
“As you’ll see, my birth certificate shows that I was born to Erica and Todd Montgomery, the two people who raised me.” She relayed the events surrounding her mom’s labor and delivery.
Donna extracted the documents from the envelope and examined them. “Nowadays we take extreme precautions to make sure that this doesn’t happen.”
Donna’s statement implied that at the time of Leah’s birth, precautions may not have been quite so extreme.
Sebastian remained silent, intensity flowing from him.
As soon as Donna set down the papers, Leah spoke. “I’d like access to the hospital records concerning my birth. Are those records still in existence?”
“They are.”
Relief relaxed Leah’s spine.
“We keep old records off-site with a data management company,” Donna said. “We’ll simply need for you to fill out a records request form and for your mother to sign a waiver. A few days later we can have them here for you. You’re welcome to look at the original documents. Or we can provide print copies or copies in an electronic format.”
“I’d also like to examine the records of the other baby girls born on my birthday so that I can figure out who my biological parents are.”
Donna mounded her hands on top of her desk—a relaxed posture. However, white rimmed the edges of her fingertips, which informed Leah that her hands were exerting pressure. “That, I cannot do. You’ll understand that our patients’ records are kept in strictest privacy.”
“Of course,” Sebastian replied smoothly. “And you’ll understand that in sending two children home with the wrong parents, a negligent act was committed. If we return with a court order granting us access to the records, will you allow us to view them?”
“Should you return with a court order, I’ll be more than glad to cooperate with you as fully as the law permits.” Her attention settled on Leah. “However, it’s extremely unlikely that a judge will release the records of every baby girl born on your birthday. HIPAA laws are stringent. Almost certainly, you’ll have to show the judge why you believe yourself to be the biological daughter of, for example, John and Jane Doe. If you make a compelling case, the judge may release to you the records of only Baby Girl Doe, born here on your birth date.”
“I see.” Leah possessed a single clue regarding the identity of her birth parents: the list of DNA matches YourHeritage had provided. If she did some detective work on the site using the family trees her biological relations had made public, adding logic and a process of elimination . . . she might be able to deduce her parents’ surname.
“I’m very sorry that this happened to you,” Donna said. “I can only imagine how upsetting this has been.”
“Thank you.” She pegged Donna as smart, principled, decent. Whether those qualities would prove true remained to be seen.
What didn’t remain to be seen? Sebastian’s status as a powerful ally. He was more than a match for Donna, or, she’d guess, just about anyone. His hands were laced together in his lap. But no telltale white pressure marks marred his fingertips.
It was dark by the time Sebastian returned home that night. Starving, he stuck the premade dinner his meal service had left for him into the microwave, then stared at the light behind the appliance’s see-through door.
Like a tugboat, his mind pulled him to Leah.
He’d been starstruck, sitting across the table from her this morning. He wasn’t someone who got starstruck. But he couldn’t think of a better word to describe the effect she had on him.
He suspected that she was the smartest person he’d ever met in his life, and he wasn’t exactly an academic slouch. Nor were his medical school classmates and teachers.
He’d found himself wishing he could get a glimpse of what was going on inside her head. In The Matrix, the characters had been able to download knowledge directly into their brains. That’s what he’d like to do with Leah . . . hook a cable from her head to his so he could import even a portion of what she knew.
He sensed she had more intelligence, more integrity, more optimism, and more compassion than he did. However, she was also crazier than he was if she believed that dating and romance weren’t for her.
He’d bet a million dollars that, with the right person, she could experience physical attraction as powerfully as any other woman. Maybe with him, she could—
That is, with Ben. Maybe with Ben she could.
The microwave dinged, and he opened the door to find that it contained nothing. No dinner.
What had he done with his food? It wasn’t sitting on any of the counters. He opened the refrigerator. Not there. Not in the freezer, either. He pulled back the pantry door and spotted it.
Instead of warming his meal as he’d intended, he’d been so distracted by Leah that he’d put it in the pantry.
Great, Sebastian. Really sharp. He sighed irritably and placed it in the microwave.
He’d guess Leah’s nerdiness had been obvious when she was younger. These days, only a shadow of it remained. He’d seen it in the candid, old-fashioned way she spoke. The way she tipped her chin up, just a little, when thinking. The way she moved her hands.
She might be a professor at heart, but she resembled a pin-up girl on the outside.
He’d been frozen in place by
her striking eyes. Her hair looked like she’d ridden in a convertible with the top down, then combed her fingers through it—a style so casual that it contrasted with her very tidy clothing. There hadn’t been a single wrinkle in her shirt or skirt, and both had been modest . . . so much so they were almost fussy. Yet, strangely, he found her clothes just as sexy as her hair.
After they’d left Donna McKelvey’s office, they’d stopped at a different area of the hospital so that Leah could fill out record request forms and receive a waiver to forward to her mother.
When she’d informed him that she planned to contact an attorney in Misty River about pursuing a court order, his body had bristled. No way could he stand to the side and watch an attorney gouge Leah’s bank account. Especially because he didn’t feel he’d repaid his debt to her in full.
He’d said that his attorney friend Jenna owed him a favor. The technically true part of that was that he had an attorney named Jenna. He’d told Leah that Jenna would reach out to her soon and asked Leah to include him when she returned to the hospital. As good as Jenna was, he was the only one of the three of them who had experience with hospital administrators.
The microwave finished, and he peeled back the container’s packaging. Italian meatballs and marinara sauce over zucchini noodles. He carried the steaming food to his living room and filled his big screen with a replay of the Manchester United versus Liverpool soccer match from last season. Leaning back, he crossed his feet on the coffee table.
His apartment looked and felt like the sort of place that would go for top dollar on Airbnb. He’d hired a friend of a friend of a friend to design it for him, and she’d done a good job. The modern pieces of furniture worked fine. The building was new. He had a sixth-floor view of downtown and could walk to the hospital from here.
Even so, he didn’t like the apartment much. Nothing about it was personal.
He only felt at home in two places. Ben’s family’s house and his own house in Misty River.
Ben.
He frowned while chewing, the light of the TV screen glowing on his face. He’d texted Ben days ago to let him know he was helping Leah with issues of hospital bureaucracy. He’d texted Ben again today to say that the hospital meeting had gone well and that at least one follow-up meeting would be needed to secure the information she wanted.
Ben had answered with a brief thanks both times. Since the farmers market, Sebastian had seen Ben once, when they’d gone to a Braves game. There’d been a slight unspoken strain between them. Ben, who usually talked about Leah a lot, hadn’t mentioned her that day. Neither had Sebastian. They’d both had to work a little too hard to make things between them seem normal.
Sebastian would travel to Misty River a week from today for Ben’s parents’ fortieth anniversary dinner. He’d get their friendship back on track then. If he wasn’t going to date Leah, and he wasn’t, then the trade-off had to be a good relationship with Ben.
Watch soccer, idiot.
Sebastian liked things done a certain way. He didn’t get embarrassed, and he wasn’t afraid to anger people when necessary. He was persistent. Stubborn.
Ben liked to ask him dryly if there was anything on earth Sebastian didn’t have an opinion about. The answer was no. He had strong feelings toward everything.
Ice cream flavor? Cookies and cream.
Sport? Soccer.
Indoor temperature? Seventy-two in the summer, sixty-eight in the winter.
Practicing medicine? Nothing but excellence would do.
Problem was, he could feel all his persistence and stubbornness and strong feelings funneling in one direction.
Toward Leah Montgomery.
His ability to focus, usually an asset, was becoming a flaw.
His phone’s pager system went off. Squinting, he checked his secure messages.
A baby with blockage in all four pulmonary veins had just been delivered, and he was needed immediately.
CHAPTER FIVE
Excuse me?” Mom squawked over the phone four days later. She’d finally called Leah from Guinea to inquire after the second DNA test.
“I’m not your biological daughter,” Leah repeated calmly. It was late on a Tuesday night. Dylan was sleeping over at a friend’s house, and Leah had paused Return of the Jedi to answer her phone. Beyond the walls of her house, the heavy darkness of the mountains reigned.
“Yes you are, Leah. You’re my biological daughter.”
“No, it turns out that I’m not. Which doesn’t have to change anything between us.”
Mom continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “They placed you in my arms in the hospital.”
“Yes, but you were unconscious for my delivery, so you didn’t see the face of your baby. There’s no telling what happened between the time you delivered your daughter and the moment they brought me to you. The only thing that’s certain, at this point, is that I’m not the baby girl you gave birth to.”
She’d been researching switched-at-birth cases. It was both mind-boggling and fascinating to read about people who’d been stowaways in families not their own. In every case, the children who were switched were of the same gender. They were born at the same place on the same day, often within minutes of each other. Sometimes their mothers shared the same first name.
When a person went public with their switched-at-birth story, attention covered them like a rain shower. Because of that, it seemed to Leah that those who discovered they’d been switched at birth later in life—well after they’d made their way in the world and established families of their own—weathered the storm best.
Which confirmed her initial decision not to tell Dylan, or anyone other than her mother and Sebastian, what she’d uncovered. Leah didn’t aspire to be a whistle-blower. Didn’t want money from the hospital via a court settlement. Didn’t plan to crusade for hospital reforms. She simply wanted to know who her biological parents were and—if possible—to understand how this had occurred.
As she’d read article after article, she’d wondered just how many people who’d discovered they’d been switched at birth had chosen the path she’d chosen and decided to remain silent. A fair number, possibly.
“That’s crazy,” Mom stated. “Those results are wrong.”
“Choosing denial?” Leah asked mildly.
“YourHeritage probably didn’t even bother to run the second sample you sent. I bet they just gave you the same answers as last time.”
Hopefully, Mom would remain in a state of denial. If so, she wouldn’t mount a search for her missing child. Which would make things easier for Leah.
“You haven’t told Dylan, have you?” Mom asked.
“No.”
“Good! Don’t tell him. It will just rile him up.”
“I agree.” Leah was momentarily disoriented. Were she and Mom actually in agreement?
“And there’s no sense getting him riled up over something that’s not even legitimate. You are my daughter.”
“I’m not going to tell Dylan. Will you please sign the waiver that I faxed to you?”
“Why would I?”
“Because it means a lot to me and because I’m asking nicely.”
After a taut moment, Mom said, “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you been feeding Dylan enough kale, Leah? And also chia seeds? Chia seeds provide fiber, and you both need lots of fiber in your diet.”
Leah bit her tongue, as she always did, in response to Mom’s random parenting suggestions. When Mom had chased her ambitions overseas, she’d both forfeited her right to parent and removed much of Leah’s ability to control her own life.
Leah had responded by dedicating herself to controlling what little remained—her well-being and Dylan’s well-being. Leah was the one who supported Dylan, who stocked the pantry, bought his clothes, paid for his phone and car insurance. Leah was the one who made sure he went to the doctor and did his homework and cleaned his room and avoided parties with kegs.
Because
of her ingrained responsibility for her brother, every dream she’d had since taking over his care had been an anxiety dream. Her struggling to get Dylan out in time while their house burned. Her failing to watch him carefully as he stumbled into the street in front of a speeding car. Her losing Dylan in a crowd. Her remembering suddenly that Dylan lived in the bedroom next to hers and realizing that he must have starved because she hadn’t fed him anything in weeks.
Thus, if anyone had the final say on kale and chia seeds . . . it wasn’t Mom.
It was her.
The Coleman family barbecue sauce recipe was an old and closely protected secret. Very dark in color, it tasted like Georgia: southern and spicy with sweetness underneath. The smell of that sauce swamped Sebastian when he stepped out of his car into evening sunshine the night of the anniversary party for Ben’s parents.
Ben was the third of four kids. His siblings were married and had already given him four nephews and two nieces. The Colemans also had a large extended family and a huge circle of friends. All of whom had big appetites.
Since Ben’s dad, Herschel, owned only one barbecue, he’d no doubt gained the cooperation of several neighbors, and was cooking ribs and chicken on multiple grills at once.
Sebastian started toward the party, past all the cars that had forced him to park a block away. He carried a gift under one arm like a football, even though the invitation had specified no gifts. He’d never had an easy time following rules he didn’t personally agree with.
Atlanta weather was humid in the summer. But not here, thanks to Misty River’s altitude. Cool mountain breezes tugged away some of the stress of his workweek.
The Colemans’ house had been built in the late sixties in a style that reminded him of the Brady Bunch house. Roomy, with a retro rock fireplace, it had a stairway made of wooden slats that led upstairs from the front door. Because the house was located at the end of a cul-de-sac, the backyard widened from the porch like a pie slice, expanding out into undeveloped land.