"You look tired," Victoria said when Hannah slid into the booth across from her at a quiet cafe near the waterfront. "I am sorry. I know last night was a lot."
"It was," Hannah said. "I kept telling myself I would forget about it by morning. That did not work."
Victoria smiled carefully. "Thank you for coming. I know you owe me nothing. I only wanted to show you something."
Hannah wrapped both hands around her mug. "Okay. Show me."
Victoria took a small velvet pouch from her purse, opened it slowly, and set a tiny silver baby bracelet on the table, with two small initials engraved on the front.
Hannah stared at it. "G.A.," she read aloud.
"Gwen Ashford," Victoria said quietly. "My daughter. I bought this bracelet before she was born. I kept it all these years."
"Why would you keep it?" Hannah asked. "Would that not hurt too much?" "It did hurt," Victoria said. "But throwing it away would have felt like giving up on her. I could not do that. So I kept it in a drawer, and I took it out every year on her birthday."
Hannah felt her throat tighten. She pushed the bracelet back toward Victoria with one fingertip. "Mrs. Ashford, I understand that you lost your daughter. I am truly sorry. But I am not her. I have parents. I was born at home in Portland. My mom has told me that story my whole life."
Victoria folded her hands on the table. "Tell me the story," she said. "Please. I want to hear it the way you heard it."
Hannah blinked. "What?"
"The story of your birth," Victoria said. "What did your mother tell you?"
Hannah shrugged, trying to sound casual. "She said it was a fast labor. She said Dad was pacing in the kitchen and she told him to boil water like in the movies, and then I arrived before the water did. She said I was small but loud."
Victoria nodded slowly. "Did she ever show you anything from that day? A photograph? A blanket? Anything at all?"
Hannah opened her mouth, then closed it. She had heard the story a dozen times, but she had never seen a single thing from the day she was supposedly born. No hospital papers, because there had been no hospital. No photos from that first week.
"I do not think so," Hannah said. "We never really talked about proof. It was just the story."
"That is why I asked about a DNA test," Victoria said. "It is the only thing that can give us a real answer. A birthmark does not prove anything. A bracelet does not prove anything."
Hannah shook her head. "I am not ready for that. I need to think. I need to talk to my mom first, in person. I called her last night, but it was late and I did not say much."
"What did she say?" Victoria asked.
"She got quiet," Hannah said. "Then she said I should not worry about strangers and their stories. She said to come home when I could." "She asked if I was eating enough," Hannah said, trying to smile. "That is what she asks when she does not want to talk about something hard. Then she told me to drive safely if I came home, and she hung up."
Victoria was silent for a moment. Then she said, very gently, "Hannah, do you have anything from your birth at all? Anything your mother kept?"
Hannah started to say no again, and then she stopped. A memory rose up of a box in the attic in Portland. She had seen it once when she was sixteen and helping her dad look for Christmas lights. Her mother had come up the attic stairs and told her not to touch it, that it was just old baby things, and Hannah had forgotten about it until now.
"There is a box," Hannah said slowly. "In the attic at my parents house in Portland. My name is on it. Mom told me not to open it."
Victoria leaned forward slightly. "Would you look inside it? Not for me. For yourself."
Hannah stared into her coffee. If the box held nothing, she could go back to her normal life. If it held something, everything she believed about herself might change.
"I will go this weekend," Hannah said finally. "I will drive to Portland and look."
Victoria exhaled. "Thank you. Whatever you find, I want you to know I am not here to take anything from you. You have a life, and you have parents who love you. I only want the truth, even if the truth is that you are not my daughter."
Hannah nodded. She stood up, and Victoria stood too, and for a second they just looked at each other across the table.
"I will call you after I go to Portland," Hannah said.
"I will be here," Victoria said.
The drive to Portland that Sunday felt longer than usual. Hannah kept the radio off and kept thinking about the bracelet and the way her mother had gone quiet on the phone. By the time she pulled into the driveway, her hands were shaking.
Her parents were out. She let herself in with her old key, climbed the attic stairs, and found the box where she remembered it, tucked behind winter blankets. Hannah carried it downstairs to the kitchen table.
She lifted the lid. Under a folded baby blanket lay a faded hospital bracelet. Hannah picked it up with trembling fingers and read the words printed on it. Baby G.A. Beside it was a folded note. Hannah stared at it, her heart pounding, and did not open it.
Chapter 4: The Night at St. Mary's
"She is burning up, Robert. Feel her forehead. Tell me I am overreacting."
Victoria said it twice on the drive to St. Mary's. Both times Robert answered the same way, steady.
"You are not overreacting. We are doing the right thing. Let me carry her."
It was June 2001. Gwen was three months old. She had been fussy all afternoon, refusing her bottle. By evening her cheeks were flushed. The pediatrician had said to bring her in.
A nurse at the desk looked up. "What brings you in tonight?"
"My daughter has a fever," Victoria said. "She is three months old. Her name is Gwen Ashford. She has not taken her bottle since noon."
"How high was the fever at home?" the nurse asked.
"One hundred and one," Victoria said. "I checked twice."
"Good. You did the right thing. Have a seat, and we will call you."
They sat in plastic chairs by the window. Robert held Gwen against his shoulder. Victoria held the diaper bag and counted the tiles.