The sunshine on this mid-October Saturday was behaving like a teacher’s pet, making an unabashed bid for Leah’s favor as it slid through the front window of Sugar Maple Kitchen to burnish Tess, Rudy, and their breakfast table.
Tess continued updating Leah on her son. “Trey and Carla have their bags packed and plan to start driving as soon as they hear that Sasha’s in labor so they can arrive in time for their grandchild’s birth.”
“So exciting.”
“I have a photo.”
Leah chewed her waffle, and Rudy poured extra syrup on his pancakes while Tess fussed with her phone. After a moment, she showed Leah the picture of Trey’s very pregnant daughter and her husband.
“Sasha looks both adorable and uncomfortable,” Leah commented.
“She really does look very uncomfortable,” Rudy seconded. “Poor thing!”
“This will be your third great-grand, right?” Leah asked.
“Our fourth,” Rudy answered.
Tess jabbed him with an elbow. “Our third.”
Rudy bobbled his fork. It clattered onto the floor. “Oops.”
“Rudy,” Tess scolded.
He scooped up the errant fork and held it out in front of him like a flower as he approached the coffee bar to ask for a replacement.
Tess gave a long-suffering sigh.
Leah told herself to eat her waffle and her two strips of crisp bacon more slowly. Breakfasts at Sugar Maple Kitchen were meant to be savored.
Tess took a ladylike sip of coffee. “Update me, please, on Dylan’s college applications.”
“He’s decided to pursue a degree in art, but so far he’s only submitted one college application. One!” She could bemoan Dylan to Tess and Rudy because she was certain of their adoration of her brother.
“Even I know that he ought to have a portfolio of applications, so to speak,” Tess said. “Some schools that are aspirational, some practical, some you can be sure he’ll get into.”
“Precisely.”
“Don’t lose heart. Everything is going to turn out beautifully for him.”
“It’s hard to see how, with him so . . . recalcitrant.”
“The main thing is to find a school that suits him, a place where he’ll be appreciated and inspired to learn.”
“I agree, of course. It’s just . . .” She blew a tendril of hair out of her way. “He’s maddening!”
“Leah,” Tess said.
Leah met the older woman’s eyes.
“It will work out. You’re doing an excellent job.” The force of Tess’s will was not to be quibbled with. “It will work out.”
Rudy sank into his chair. “I’m just going to keep this here from now on.” He stuck the new fork behind his ear. He grinned at Leah, and she smiled back. He looked both ridiculous and cute.
“Rudy,” Tess warned.
Cowed, Rudy held the fork properly, then regarded his plate with awe. “I’d love some chocolate sauce to top this off.”
“Absolutely not,” Tess replied. “You’re borderline diabetic.”
Leah spotted a familiar face leaving the to-go line. “Connor!”
His expression brightened when he saw her. He neared, carrying a drink holder with two coffees in one hand and a bag of pastries in the other.
“Bringing breakfast home to your mom?” Leah asked.
“You guessed it.”
She introduced Connor to Tess and Rudy, who both sized him up with ill-concealed interest.
“Connor grew up here,” she told the older couple, “then went to college in California and stayed on the West Coast for several years.”
“I love Disneyland,” Rudy announced. “So much fun!”
“He started teaching art at the high school,” Leah explained, “the semester after I started there.”
“What brought you back to Misty River?” Tess asked.
“I came back to help my mom after she was diagnosed with ALS.”
“Ah.” Rudy’s demeanor radiated empathy.
“How’s your mom doing?” Tess asked.
“She has some mobility issues, but overall, as well as I could hope.” He asked Tess and Rudy questions about their history with the town. Tess provided answers before Rudy could.
Both Ben’s and Connor’s friendship had greatly enriched her work life. She was closer with Ben because she spent more time with him. But Connor was great, too. His mellow nature immediately put everyone at ease. He was the same age as Leah but more mature than most of the other men she knew in their late twenties. Simply put, he was good, through and through.
Connor’s kind gaze settled on Leah. “I’m glad I ran into you today.”
“Likewise.”
“I’ll see you Monday.” Then, to Tess and Rudy, “Really nice to have met you.” He threaded toward the exit.
“Leah,” Rudy stage-whispered loudly. “Have you been on any dates with that young man?”
“Rudy!” Tess rushed to say. “Of all the inappropriate questions.”
“Sorry.” Impishness sparked behind his glasses. “Well? Have you?”
“No, nor will I. We’re just friends.”
“Friendship can lead to love,” Rudy said.
“Connor’s interested in someone else, a woman he’s liked since middle school.”
“Oh?” Rudy asked. “That’s a long time to like someone.”
“A very long time.” So long that Leah had a hard time imagining it. She’d formed zero attachments to the boys at her middle school. “Connor’s steadfast.”
“Has the woman he likes given him a chance?”
“She’s had a boyfriend for years. They recently broke up, so she’s currently in mourning over that. I’m hopeful that once she comes out of mourning, she’ll give Connor a chance.”
“Have you been on any dates with any young men recently?” Rudy pressed.
“It’s not nice to pry,” Tess said.
“I went on one date back in August, and I was asked out on another date two days ago. However, nothing came of the date in August, and nothing will come of the offer from two days ago.” An image of Sebastian arriving in his office the day of the hospital tour, with disordered dark hair and a tragic past, coalesced in her memory—
She shook herself. She’d always pitied man-crazy women. She had no intention of becoming one of them.
Rudy’s shoulders slumped.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Leah said.
“You’ve never disappointed us.” Tess spoke staunchly. “Not in any way.”
“That’s very true,” Rudy told her. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m not the slightest bit perfect!”
“So perfect,” Rudy insisted, “that I want you to end up with a man who appreciates you.”
“And I want to end up with a PhD that I can appreciate.”
“Of course you do,” Tess said. “Rightly so.”
“May I have that?” Rudy reached for the mini muffin that sat next to fruit slices on Tess’s plate.
Adroitly, she intercepted his hand with a defensive maneuver. “Borderline diabetes,” she reminded him. Resigned sigh. She checked her watch. “Finish up because I need to take you to your water aerobics class at the Y.”
“Do I have to go today?”
“Absolutely. You made a commitment when you signed up for the series of classes—”
“Really, it was you who made me sign up.”
“—and now we have to follow through.”
“I don’t like water aerobics,” Rudy confessed to Leah.
Ten minutes later, the older couple headed out the door.
Leah slipped her laptop from her messenger bag and settled it on the table. Here, away from Dylan’s prying eyes, she could turn her attention to the pursuit of answers regarding the events that had occurred the day of her birth.
Since she’d followed the Brooksides to church almost two weeks ago, she’d been combing through more and more accounts of real life switched-at-birth cases.
The majority occurred because of an accident. Two sets of twins were inadvertently mixed up so that the pairs of brothers grew up thinking they were fraternal twins when they were identical. Hospital staffers lost ID bracelets. Girls born five minutes apart were confused with each other.
However, some switches derived from even more obvious negligence. A drunk nurse set two babies in the same incubator to treat them for jaundice, and then returned them to the wrong mothers. Twins placed in foster care were reunited with their parents, who later learned that only one of the boys returned to them was their biological child.
In at least one case—the most famous of them all—babies had been switched on purpose out of a misguided sense of compassion. A couple had been trying for years to conceive a child. When they finally gave birth to a baby, it was discovered that the girl had a grave heart condition. Allegedly, a doctor instructed employees to give the sick baby to a family that already had five children, and to give the healthy baby to the couple who’d struggled to conceive.
In carefully going back over the paperwork from her mother’s delivery and hospital stay, Leah had taken extra notice of a detail she’d previously skimmed past.
The names of the nurses.
Sebastian had mentioned that he thought it more likely that a nurse had been responsible for the switch than a doctor. Between the labor and delivery room and the neonatal nursery, four nurses had handled her care in the first hour after her birth.
Lois Simpson
Bonnie O’Reilly
Tracy Segura
Joyce Caffarella
The nurses represented a potential source of new information. If she could locate where they were now, she could ask them questions.
She typed Lois Simpson nurse Atlanta, Georgia into Google.
The very first link that popped up read Lois Simpson Obituary—Milledgeville, Georgia | Legacy.com.
A sense of gravity settled over her as she followed the link and read the obituary. Lois had passed away two years before, at the age of eighty-six. Thus, she would have been sixty when Leah was born. The obituary mentioned that she’d worked as a nurse at Emory University Hospital and Magnolia Avenue Hospital for a combined total of thirty years. Lois, a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, had been famous for her homemade lemon pound cake and singing in her church’s choir.
Leah would not be able to contact Lois.
She began again with the name Bonnie O’Reilly.
Several hits came up—websites, more obits, images. She scrolled through them, clicked on a few. It didn’t take long to determine that none of these Bonnie O’Reillys were the one she sought. She visited the most prominent social media sites without luck. Returning to Google, she combed through four more pages of results.
She hadn’t found an obituary for a Bonnie O’Reilly who’d been a nurse in Atlanta, which meant Bonnie might still be living. If so, Bonnie was not, apparently, posting about her life for the world to see. Nor could Leah find any articles that mentioned her.
When Leah ran a search for Tracy Segura, she instantly came upon a Facebook profile that listed Magnolia Avenue Hospital under the “Work and Education” heading. A thin woman with strawberry blond hair, Tracy must have been in her early twenties when Leah was born, because she looked no older than fifty now.
Leah shook out her fingers, then composed a Facebook DM to Tracy. She explained that she’d been born at Magnolia Avenue and asked if Tracy would be willing to answer a few questions.
Finally, she entered Joyce Caffarella into the search engine. The third result appeared promising.
Joyce Caffarella—RN—St. Joseph’s | LinkedIn. Joyce’s LinkedIn profile provided a treasure trove of information. Her picture revealed a stout woman with a broad smile. Mousse and hair spray pushed her short platinum hair high. According to her page, she’d started at a pediatrician’s office, accomplished a brief stint as a surgical nurse, then moved to Magnolia Avenue for six years. Since then, she’d been working at a hospital in Peachtree City.
Leah sent her a private message identical to the one she’d sent Tracy.
Just how long, she wondered, should she expect it to take before she heard back?
Somebody gave you a gift,” Dylan called out to her the next day when Leah returned home from a hike.
“Hmm?”
She found him at the dining room table, his attention on his phone, laying waste to a box of Cheez-Its. Near his elbow sat a small gift wrapped in ivory paper and tied with an orange satin bow.
“Dunno. I saw it sitting on the front door mat when I got home from Braxton’s.”
“No packaging? No address?”
“Just that little card.”
She picked it up. The miniature card affixed to the bow simply read Leah.
Dylan slanted a mocking look at her. “You should probably be really careful with that. You don’t know where it came from, and it might be filled with explosives. Or poison. Explosives and poison are dangerous.”
“Quite right! I encourage you to be cautious of unidentified packages. Also, be wary of underage drinking and speeding and twerking. Never engage in any of that.”
He snorted and returned to his phone and food.
Leah slipped off the bow and raised the lid. Within, a gold necklace glimmered against a backdrop of velvet. A smattering of tiny stars and dots engraved its oval charm.
Wonder moved through her like flour through a sifter. The necklace was delicate. Classy.
She pulled the velvet backing from the bottom of the box. Beneath, she found a single piece of stationery marked with the name of a jewelry store.
The necklace shows the brightest stars in the sky on the night you were born. Some things might have gone wrong on that day, but you weren’t one of them.
-Sebastian
Since she’d received her DNA results, she’d sought to address her birthday mix-up in the way that had always served her best: with logic. Logically she knew she wasn’t the mistake.
Emotionally, that was a little harder to internalize. Across her early childhood years, she’d always felt that she didn’t fit. She’d come to accept and even own that fact. But now evidence proved that she was more than simply someone who didn’t fit. She was, without a doubt, a tremendous oddity. She’d been switched at birth when no one else she’d met or was likely to meet in her lifetime had been switched at birth.
Some things might have gone wrong on that day, but you weren’t one of them.
A heated ball glowed in the vicinity of her heart.
Glancing up, she discovered Dylan watching her smugly. “Is that from Dr. Grant?”
“Yes.”
“The guy you don’t have a crush on?”
“Correct.” She shut herself into the bathroom and tried on the necklace. The chain fell to just the right length.
She dialed Sebastian’s number.
Her call went to voice mail.
He was no doubt busy rescuing a sick child from the jaws of death.
Sebastian was going to have to take Isabella Ackerman off the heart transplant list.
Her parents, Megan and Timothy, waited nearby while he finished his examination. Megan looked like a thinner, harder version of the woman he’d first met. Timothy was as stocky and bearded as before. But his posture had started to stoop. Their expressions pleaded with Sebastian to say that he could make their daughter well.
He hated this part of his job. “Isabella has developed sepsis,” he informed them. Last week, one of his colleague’s patients had become septic and died within twenty-four hours.
Megan anxiously tucked her hair behind her ears. “How are you going to treat it?”
“Antibiotics. Additional medications for her blood pressure and cardiac function. Increased ventilation.”
“How long do you think it will take until she’s better?” Timothy asked.
“I don’t know.” There was no guarantee of “better” for Isabella. Her small body might have endured all it could take, in which case this would be the final blow. If she did recover, “better” for her would mean she’d still be so sick that she’d need this Pediatric Intensive Care Unit to keep her alive.
“Here’s what I can tell you for sure,” Sebastian said. “Those of us on staff are committed to doing everything we can to help her.” It made him furious that the best care and the best science couldn’t save them all.
“Can she remain on the transplant list?” Megan asked.
“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to remove her from the list. For now.”
Their faces fell. They knew that removing Isabella from the list meant removing her shot at survival.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said.
Weighted silence answered.
Isabella fidgeted.
Megan pressed a kiss to the baby’s forehead, then took hold of her daughter’s hand. “I’m worried she’s uncomfortable.”
“She’s comfortable,” Sebastian said. “We wouldn’t allow her to be otherwise.” Not many years ago, children like Isabella had simply been protected from pain with palliative care until they died, a few days after their birth, in their parents’ arms.
Treatments had come a long way in a short time, and now parents almost always chose to intervene surgically. Even when the odds weren’t in their favor, they were willing to try a Hail Mary pass to give their child a chance at life.
“Several of our family members are coming by to visit her later today,” Megan said. “Do you hear that, sweetheart? A whole group of people who love you are on their way. They’ve met you, but they can’t wait for you to meet them.”
He saw it all the time—large interconnected families, hanging on every breath of their newest, youngest, sickest member. They crowded into waiting rooms during surgery. Filled sections of the cafeteria and lobby. They often brought balloons, stuffed animals, cookies.
Those big families always threw his own situation—the fact that he had no one but the Colemans—into perspective.
“Everyone at our church has been praying for Isabella,” Timothy said to Sebastian. “Her story has spread to other churches in Augusta, and we’ve heard that they’re all praying, too.”
“We’ll let them know about the sepsis,” Megan said, her voice cracking. “And they’ll double down on their conversations with God.”
“You’ll put her back on the transplant list as soon as the sepsis is gone, right?” Timothy asked.
“When the sepsis is gone, we’ll reevaluate.” Sebastian excused himself and turned toward the break room.
He never made promises to family members that he couldn’t keep, because his mother had once assured him that she’d recover. He didn’t know if she’d believed that when she’d said it or not. Either way, she’d lied.
She’d died on a Tuesday, while he was at school.
The hospice staff had believed that she had several days left, and his mom had wanted him to continue his routine. So he’d gone to school even though he’d hated school and been nauseous with worry every morning when the old lady neighbor they were staying with walked him to the bus stop wearing her house shoes.
On that Tuesday when he’d returned home from school, he’d knocked on the door of the old lady’s apartment.
A young female voice had called, “Come in.”
He entered and watched two women raise their faces toward him sadly. The old lady was there, but so was the young one with curly brown hair who’d been coming around. They called her his social worker, except he wasn’t really sure what that meant.
His vision jerked to his mom, in her hospital bed. Smooth blankets covered her to her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, and she was too still. Too white.
Terror tightened his stomach.
“Sebastian,” the old lady said, “your mother passed away while napping a few hours ago.”
He couldn’t move or speak.
Your mother passed away.
No.
Your mother passed away.
No!
“I’m so sorry,” the social worker said.
“It was peaceful,” the old lady told him.
His lungs weren’t working, and a terrible buzzing noise filled his head.
“We didn’t know if you’d want to see her before she goes,” the social worker said, “but we wanted to give you that option. It’s totally up to you.”
His mom had died? And he hadn’t been there?
He was going to be sick all over his shoes.
“I want you to know that you’ll be safe and cared for,” the social worker said. “There’s a plan in place. As soon as you’re ready, I’ll take you to a family who lives near here. They have a room ready for you, and they’re very kind people.”
He hated the social worker with the curly brown hair. He’d never be safe, and he’d never be cared for, and he’d never be ready to leave this apartment. This is where his mom was.
His mom. She was his family.
These ladies were strangers.
He’d remained silent the rest of that awful day. They’d let him sit at his mom’s bedside for a long time. He’d stared at her because he’d been too scared to hold a dead person’s hand.
Sebastian forced his thoughts back to the present. In the break room, he downed trail mix and poured himself a mug of coffee. Then he took the mug with him up to the second highest floor of the building.
Occasionally, he needed fresh air to clear his head. It didn’t matter the season. The steamy heat of summer, the freezing wind of winter. He’d investigated every hospital he’d worked at until he’d found at least one space that could offer him quiet and privacy outdoors.
He passed through a rarely used conference room and exited onto a balcony. At the rail, he breathed the damp afternoon air. The coffee was bitter, but it also provided a needed shock to his senses. He took regular sips until he’d drunk half of it.
Checking his phone, he saw that he’d missed a call from Leah. The realization affected him like sunlight. It shoved aside the gray clouds.
He placed a call to her, anticipating the sound of her voice.
“I received a necklace from you today,” she said as soon as she picked up. “Did you hand deliver it?”
“I did, this morning. Before I got called back to the hospital.”
“The necklace is exquisite. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“However, it’s not my birthday.”
“I hope not. I plan to do much better on your birthday.”
“Sebastian!” she said, half laughing, half chiding. “I cannot possibly accept lavish presents given to me for no reason.”
“That wasn’t a lavish present.”
“I have a sneaking suspicion that it was.”
“And it was given for a reason.”
“Which is?”
“I like you.”
“That’s not a valid reason.”
“That’s the most valid reason there is.”
“This is too kind. . . .”
“Is there such a thing as too kind?”
“Too generous—”
“Is there such a thing as too generous?”
“I value my independence. If I need a necklace, I will buy a necklace.”
His smile grew. “You’re one of those people, I can tell. The sort who don’t know how to accept a gift. I think you need more practice.”
“And I think you need to return the necklace and invest the money.”
“I view the necklace as an investment. Besides, I’m no fool. I bought you a custom-made necklace that can’t be returned.”
“In an effort to make me feel even more indebted to you so that I say yes to a date?”
“Exactly. But also to make you happy.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re difficult?”
“Everyone I’ve ever known. But you’re a math prodigy because you’ve figured out how to solve difficult problems. Right?”
“I haven’t the foggiest notion how to solve problems of the adult male variety.”
“Will you go out on a date with me?” he asked.
“No.”
“In that case, will you travel to Atlanta next weekend to see me?”
“No.”
“Fine. Then I’ll come back to Misty River next weekend to see you.”
“I recommend that you spare yourself the effort.”
I’ll see you then, he thought.
On Monday, a top-of-the-line graphing calculator arrived at Leah’s front door. She hadn’t known calculators could be personalized. But apparently they could be if someone was persistent enough, because Professor Montgomery was etched into its back.
It could not be returned.
On Tuesday, Dylan received an Atlanta Falcons jersey with Montgomery stitched across the shoulder blades.
It could not be returned.
She began to pray, asking God to let her know if going on a date with Sebastian was a viable option or an absolute no.
She couldn’t discern His answer.
On Wednesday, a copy of The Theory of Numbers, first edition, published in 1914, landed on Leah’s doorstep. In an act that verged very near desecration, someone had written Property of Leah Montgomery in Sharpie on its first page.
It could not be returned.
On Thursday, two very large boxes addressed to Dylan were delivered. The instant he returned home from football practice, she handed him a pair of scissors so that he could open them. Inside each box lay two hubcaps for his truck. Upon closer inspection, she noticed they were each engraved, in small print, with Dylan is chillin’. Subtle.
What wasn’t subtle? Sebastian’s methods.
The hubcaps could not be returned.
This could not go on!
A date would be preferable to this—this deluge of presents. The prospect of continuing to accept charity from him carved ice into her soul.
God had not yet made His guidance clear regarding Sebastian. But if gifts were going to continue to arrive daily, she didn’t feel she could postpone her decision until she’d received divine confirmation.
She dialed Sebastian and, for once, he answered.
“You rang?” he said.
“I’ll go on a date with you this weekend on one condition.”
“Which is?”
“You agree to cease sending Dylan and me presents.”
“Done,” he said immediately. “Can I pick you up at seven on Saturday?”
He was beyond exasperating! “Fine.”
As skilled as she was at chess, she sensed that Sebastian was no amateur at his tactics.