The Switch

by Heather Justesen

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because I have to start somewhere, and you’re the only one who might have some of the information that could lead me to answers.”

  “I had a daughter born that month,” Dr. Losee told her. “She’s a couple weeks older than you. I took the whole month of February, and most of March off, so I couldn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” And she was. Tia liked the woman. “But you still might know something about the others who worked here at that time.”

  Wariness filled the doctor’s gaze. “How do I know you won’t use the information to harass someone?”

  Tia hadn’t thought about that, so she gave it a moment’s thought. “I guess you can’t know that for sure. All you can do is trust me, or not, when I say that I’m just looking for answers. I don’t want to make anyone’s life miserable. It’s not like I’m unhappy with where I ended up, I just need to know what happened.”

  Dr. Losee didn’t answer for a long moment as she rubbed a hand along the back of her neck. “I have a photo album I’ve kept from work, which includes pictures of my baby shower. I may be able to give you a few names. But I’m not sure I should, and I don’t know where it is.”

  Hope filled Tia’s chest for the first time in weeks. “I’ll be glad for anything you can give me.”

  Dr. Losee stood. “I’ll need to think about it. If I decide to help, I’ll see if I can remember who was working here.”

  “I really appreciate it.” Tia stood as well and returned the chair to its previous position. “Think how you would feel if it were your daughter who had been switched in the hospital. It was a life-altering experience, doctor.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  Tia passed over a business card. “I’ve got my cell phone number written on the back, or you can reach me at the email address there. Thanks for your time.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Tia turned and walked out, feeling discouraged. Would the doctor really tell her anything? Could she, even if she wanted to? Tia didn’t know, but she hoped something would come along soon.

  * * *

  “Any luck?” Danny asked Tia when she came into the house after her trip to the hospital. She’d been gone longer than expected and he’d nearly called to check up on her several times, but managed to hold back. He didn’t want to be too pushy.

  “I spoke with Dr. Losee, and she agreed to consider looking for names. I don’t know if I wasted my time or not.” She dumped her coat on the sofa beside the front door, looking tired.

  “Did she sound positive though?” He pulled her into his arms, wishing he could do something to make this easier for her.

  “Positive she thought I was a trouble maker.” Tia rested her head on his chest, melting into his embrace. “If I had to say which side she was leaning toward, I’m afraid it would be to not help.” She closed her eyes. “It’s so discouraging.”

  He could feel her frustration, and deciding to distract her, nudged her head off his chest. “Let me take your mind off things for a while, then.” His kiss seemed to do that almost instantly.

  Twenty-nine

  The first private eye report came back in late January. Rashelle Ibson Moon was married with an infant son. She and her husband lived in New York State, where she’d attended college. The PI verified that Rashelle was one of the other girls at the hospital with Tia. The pictures he sent also made it unlikely that she was the one for whom Tia searched. None of her features looked right, so Tia checked her off the list. If she had to go back to Rashelle later, she’d deal with it then.

  Lisa Lowell’s file showed up a few days later. Comparatively speaking, Lisa was practically next door in Jefferson City, Missouri. Less than three hours away. The photos of her were far more promising, even if they were taken from a distance. She owned a little gift shop and had only one part-time clerk working for her. Tia put Lisa at the top of her list.

  Dates with Danny were getting more and more frequent, and Tia loved her time with him. Still, as the anniversary of Lee’s death drew closer, she struggled with dreams of him, of his final battle. He had died the week before her twenty-fifth birthday, and then his gift had arrived in the mail, two days after the funeral. She looked up at the carving of a rose he’d picked out for her days before his death, and wondered how he would have felt about Danny.

  Danny Tullis was one of the strongest men she knew. He was honest and hardworking, gentle with her and the kids, and willing to stick his neck out to help her. She’d seen the way he’d reacted after the accident where the little girl died. She knew he adored her daughters. And he’d dropped hints, with increasing frequency, that he was interested in something a little more permanent with Tia.

  How could that be wrong?

  She wasn’t sure she was ready for it, though. He was talking serious future stuff here, stuff she’d already been through and embraced years earlier. And didn’t he know she had too much on her plate already? Why did he have to come into her life right now, of all times?

  Then again, he’d been a tremendous support. He’d helped find the doctor who’d worked at the hospital when she’d been there. He’d put out feelers and helped her find three of the four PIs she ended up engaging to find the other women. He’d been there as friend, confidant, and babysitter when Nichole wasn’t available, cheering her up when she felt down, turning to her when he had a bad day at work. He was sharing her life in ways she didn’t think she’d even shared them with Lee, if only because her husband had so seldom been around.

  And Danny had fed her and the girls ice cream for breakfast. Really, could he be any more awesome? Samantha would say no, of course, but she was an idealistic kid with no clue of reality. Strangely, Tia was also starting to feel rather idealistic where Danny was concerned.

  The doorbell rang and Tia put down the report from the private eye, a smile on her face.

  * * *

  The sun was setting when Tia pulled up at Wes’s office. Her brother worked for a company that did online marketing and he managed to have regular business hours most of the time. His shift should be ending in a few minutes, so she parked her car and checked for his in the lot. Finding the electric blue Miata, Tia knew he was inside.

  She had tried to track him down several times since Samantha’s party, but it hadn’t been easy to get him alone. Too many people had been around for Christmas and Thanksgiving. It made her think he must have been avoiding her, which only made her more determined to find him.

  She pushed through the double doors into the muted blue reception area and smiled at the man sitting behind the front desk. “Hi, I’m Wes Parry’s sister. Is he still in?”

  “Yes. If you’d like to take a seat, I’ll be happy to get him for you.”

  Tia sat, though she fidgeted constantly. When Wes came through the door several minutes later, he carried his coat and laptop bag. “I’m going to cut out ten minutes early,” he told her as he shrugged on his coat. “Where are the girls?”

  “Nichole has them. You care to grab some dinner?”

  His brows lifted and he studied her. “Is this a conversation we can have in public?”

  She stared back at him. “Are you expecting it to turn ugly?”

  She saw his cheek bulge when he pushed his tongue against it. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt you’d have tracked me down here, without your girls, if we weren’t going to have a serious talk. Besides you have that look in your eye, the one that says you turned on the barbecue and I should prepare to be grilled.”

  “You’re irritating, you know that?” She stood and adjusted her coat.

  “I think you may have mentioned that completely mistaken opinion once or twice before.” He put a hand on her shoulder and led her out to the parking lot. “Want to meet at my place? I’ll order some Chinese to be delivered.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Fifteen minutes later she pulled into a visitor’s parking spot at his condo. He met her
at the door. “Come on in.”

  Tia removed her coat and draped it over a chair. She sat on the leather sofa and curled her feet beneath her. “So what are we ordering for dinner?”

  “I did it on the way here. The food should arrive any minute.” He pulled off his tie and laid it over his coat, then took a nearby chair. As if by mutual design, they discussed the girls and his job, but nothing of her search or the news about the cause of her parents’ divorce.

  The Chinese arrived and Tia loaded her plate. When Wes had done the same, she tiptoed into the main topic on her mind. “I have to say, you didn’t appear terribly surprised by the reason Mom and Dad split up.”

  He grimaced. “No, I heard about it before everything was finalized. People in town seemed to know, and were eager to share the truth with me. I’m surprised you weren’t aware before now.”

  “You knew then and didn’t tell me?” The betrayal of that was strong. “Didn’t you think I had a right to know?”

  “Look. What good would it have done to tell you? You were only eleven! Did you need to know that about your mother? I wished I hadn’t known. Strangely, people seemed to think it was their duty to make sure I was aware—after all, I was the grown up age of fourteen. Well past ready to hear the truth.” Sarcasm dripped from his words.

  Tia paused, considering for the first time how it must have felt for him. She now understood why he’d chosen to live with their father, instead of with their mom. He’d always been closer to their dad, which Tia had taken as the reason Wes had defected from their home when their parents split. Their mom’s cheating would have been difficult for him to accept. “I can’t believe I had no idea.”

  They both ate for several seconds before he changed the subject. “So Mom’s been on a tear since the birthday party. She says she thinks the DNA tests are wrong.”

  Tia rolled her eyes. She filled him in on all the details. He’d heard some of them from Mona, but predictably, she’d twisted the facts to suit herself.

  “So you’re searching for the other woman?” he asked when she’d wound down.

  “Yeah. I’m getting close. I’m still waiting on the last name to come back. Claire Hogan. Once the PI reports to me I should be ready to move forward.” This was the place where things got dicey. It had taken a long time to decide to contact the other women, but she needed to be careful about it.

  “And how many women are left on your list?”

  “One for sure. I keep hoping Clair is going to come back half Asian or something so I’ll be able to focus on Lisa.”

  “And once you know, then what?”

  “Good question.” She played with her noodles. “I’m going to have to make contact, but I’m still not sure who or how.”

  “Let me know how it goes. I’m curious about how it’ll turn out.” He shrugged when he caught her gaze. “I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s not like it makes that much of a difference to me. We’re not kids and my life won’t be turned upside down. I won’t refuse to meet her if she’s interested, but it’s not going to change my life.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” Considering how Mona had been acting, Tia had forgotten that she was the one who cared the most about how this turned out. Needing to change the subject, she settled back against the sofa and began telling him all of the funny things the girls had done recently.

  Thirty

  Lisa called goodbye to a customer and let her smile drop. She hadn’t slept well the night before and could really use a nap. The shop wouldn’t allow that, however, and her part-time clerk was off for the day. She walked to the stack of envelopes the mail lady had brought in a few minutes earlier and began to sort through them. Her mind was half on what she should wear on her date with Colby that night. After tossing the junk mail, she flipped back through the keep stack until she arrived at the white envelope again. She didn’t recognize the name in the upper right hand corner, but as the address was hand written, it was unlikely to be junk mail.

  T. Riverton. Lisa flipped it over and opened it, pulling out one type-written sheet. She read the first paragraph and dropped into a nearby chair. This was obviously a mistake—there was no way she had been switched as a baby. She refolded it and pitched it in the garbage can, then sorted out the rest of the bills and filed them to be paid.

  She looked up and greeted the next customer as they came into her boutique. More customers entered and she stayed busy, helping them find what they were looking for, putting out new merchandise and preparing statements for some of her better clients. The letter in the garbage stayed on her mind, though, lingering and creating doubt.

  When she locked up that night she fished the letter from the garbage, reread it, then tossed it again. It had to be a sick joke, and she wasn’t going to fall for it.

  * * *

  Danny gave one of the firefighters the go ahead after taking his vitals. The break had been sufficient; Mark could go back into the house fire. He wiped down the blood pressure cuff with a sanitizing wipe and smiled as the next man came to the ambulance doors. Structure fires held lots of dangers, and stress on the firefighters was one of them. After the crew members inside had emptied their air tanks, protocol required they come to the ambulance and be checked out before going back into the blaze.

  “How’s it looking in there?” Danny asked as he helped the guy from Station 3 strip off his jacket so the blood pressure cuff would fit.

  “Bad. The house will be a total loss.” He shook his head. “Looks like it started in one of the back rooms.”

  Danny nodded as he slid the oxygen sensor onto a finger of the man’s left hand. “It was a beautiful house once.” He glanced back out the window and saw a figure on the roof wielding an ax. “What’s he doing up there?” Venting out the roof was a common practice, but the fire was too big and had been burning too long. There was no way the roof was safe at this point.

  The man looked out the doorway and swore. “Fool.”

  “Did you get something to drink?” Danny turned the conversation, but kept an eye on the burning structure. A woman came in, her short-cropped hair plastered to her head, soot on her face. He switched the blood pressure cuff to her and gave her oxygen. Then a call came up and he swiveled his head to see nothing but flames where the man on the roof had been standing only moments before. His heart leaped as adrenaline pumped through him.

  A few minutes later he cleared the firefighters from the ambulance so they could bring the man from the roof in. He’d fallen through, breaking his leg upon landing. Smoke inhalation and possible internal injuries made it all worse as the man gasped for breath. Another ambulance arrived, having been called to take over so the first crew could transport the firefighter to the hospital.

  Danny hurriedly did an assessment on the man as they rushed to the trauma center.

  * * *

  Tia’s mouth tightened as she listened to the news report. A firefighter was in critical condition after a roof caved in with him on it. She had spoken to Danny only minutes before she saw the report, so she knew he was well, but he had sugarcoated the man’s condition. Tia wasn’t sure if that was because of privacy laws, or to keep her from worrying, but she was plenty worried now.

  She’d always known that Lee’s job was dangerous. He was a soldier in a hostile country. Soldiers died. Firefighters weren’t supposed to, though. Fires could be dangerous, yes, but it wasn’t like anyone was shooting at them.

  Now she realized things were not quite what she’d thought. That so easily could have been Danny. He could be the one in a hospital bed right now, fighting for his life. Could she live with that? With the fact that there was so much more risk than she ever realized?

  When she started seeing visions of him getting hit by a car at an accident scene, she clicked off the television. She was not turning into her mother! There was no way she would jump at shadows or be unreasonable.

  But the lingering fear wouldn’t go away, no matter what she did.

  Thirty-one

/>   Claire grabbed the mail as she let herself into her apartment. Home sweet home: it was a dive. She ignored the water spots on the ceiling from a recent rain and pulled out the only envelope she didn’t recognize. T. Riverton.

  She stretched out on her love seat—a feat which could only be accomplished with much of her leg flopping over the arm on the far end. She read the note once, cocked her head and read again. Surely this Tia woman was crazy.

  Then she thought about all of the times she’d felt out of sync with her world, her family. Could it be possible? She flipped on the TV and searched for the morning news. The answers wouldn’t be there, but she watched anyway, not feeling her eyelids droop as they so often did after a night shift.

  She looked at the clock and decided she’d give this Tia a call as soon as the hour was decent.

  * * *

  Tia spooned up the last of her oatmeal and set the bowl away in the dishwasher, hurrying to put the kitchen to rights. It seemed she did nothing but rush to try to catch up these days, and the late start due to lack of sleep last night wasn’t helping. “Tristi!” Tia stopped in irritation and looked down at her daughter, who was covered in diaper rash cream from top to bottom. It was in her hair, rubbed into her clothes, and dotted the carpet around her.

  After a slow count to ten, Tia scooped up her toddler and hauled her into the bathroom. That was one darling new outfit that would never be the same again. She stripped Tristi and plopped her into a bath, hoping this wouldn’t make her late for work. Then the phone rang. Giving her daughter a stern look, Tia rushed to the other room to grab her cell and hurried right back. She didn’t recognize the number of the incoming call. “Hello?”

  “Hi, is this Tia?”

  “Yes, can I help you?”

  “My name is Claire. I got your letter this morning. I wondered if we could talk.”

  Tia’s heart started to beat double-time, and she wished she could focus on the conversation, but Tristi was splashing water, and needed her hair washed, which was bound to be a pain. “I’d love to, but now is a really bad time for me.” She poured a dollop of baby shampoo in her hand and started working it into Tristi’s soft curls. “As mornings go, it’s been rather nightmarish, actually.”