A tentative knock sounded on Leah’s classroom door the next morning.
Leah straightened from the stack of quizzes she’d been grading. “Come in.”
Claire Dobney shuffled forward for their scheduled tutoring session wearing a voluminous sweater, this one in shades of beige. Black leggings and Converse that had seen better days completed the outfit.
Shortly after Leah learned about the stress the teenager was under at home, she’d suggested Claire meet her for math tutoring twice a week during Leah’s planning period, which was also Claire’s advisory period.
Leah waved her to the chair nearest her desk. “How are you?”
“Okay.”
Leah had learned from Claire that she was the oldest of four. Her sister Becca was in middle school. Her brother Mason was in fourth grade. Her sister Annie was in first.
Leah’s role as Dylan’s older sister had sculpted her character. She’d never forget how protective she’d felt toward her brother when her parents were fighting, so she knew what it was to harbor anxiety not just for your own well-being but, much harder to bear, for the well-being of a sibling.
“Have things improved at home?” Leah asked.
“No.”
Claire’s answer supported Leah’s own suspicions. She’d been keeping an eye on the girl, who seemed even jumpier and wearier lately. “Is your dad physically abusive toward your mom?”
Claire looked down at her knees, where she clasped her math binder and textbook with both hands.
“Please know,” Leah said, “that you can tell me the truth. My shoulders are strong enough to carry it.”
“No, he hasn’t been physically abusive, but I’m worried he’ll get that way soon.”
“Because?”
“Well . . . he’s always had a temper, but it’s gotten worse the last few months. He’s mad a lot, so then Mom gets mad, too. He’s been throwing things, breaking things.”
“Any idea what caused this change?”
“I think things have been bad for him at work.”
“I’m really sorry, Claire.”
“It’s okay.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do.”
“I know you’ve continued to meet with Ms. Williams.” Leah had been in communication with the school counselor about Claire. “Has that been helpful?”
Claire shrugged. “Sort of.”
“Do you have reservations about talking with her?”
“She’s nice . . . for sure. I just don’t know her well, so it feels really weird to tell her stuff.”
Worry circled within Leah because her intuition was telling her that Claire needed to be confiding in trustworthy adults. “How about you add my number to your contacts? If you ever need to call me—to come and get you or for any other reason—please do.” Though she was sixteen, Claire didn’t yet have her driver’s license.
“Thank you, Ms. Montgomery.”
Later that day, en route to her car after work, Leah checked her phone and saw that an unfamiliar number had left a voice mail for her. She retrieved it and listened as she walked to a loud and husky female voice say, “This is Joyce Caffarella calling. I just now saw that you sent me a message a while back on LinkedIn saying that you were born at Magnolia Avenue Hospital during the years when I worked there.”
Leah’s forward movement came to a swift stop.
“Here’s hoping you weren’t one of the babies that I dropped on their heads.” Scratchy laughter burst from Joyce. “Just kidding. I didn’t drop any on their heads. Well, not many anyway.” She chuckled. “You left your phone number and invited me to call so I’m doing just that. Sorry I missed you. Feel free to call me back at this number.”
One of the nurses who’d cared for her as a newborn had called her!
The other two nurses, Bonnie and Tracy, had remained elusive. Leah’s continued attempts to locate Bonnie online had failed. Tracy hadn’t responded to her Facebook message.
Joyce Caffarella. Joyce was the one with the solid frame and the spiky platinum hair. Had she been fresh out of nursing school the year she’d started the first job she’d listed on LinkedIn, her age would now be hovering just above sixty.
Leah slung the messenger bag filled with work that needed grading into her Honda, then headed home. Dylan was still at practice, which meant she could place a return call in private.
Once she’d dumped her things on the kitchen counter, she took a few moments to gather herself and whisper a prayer. Gazing out the sliding doors that led to her back patio, she connected a call to Joyce.
Joyce answered almost instantly. Leah introduced herself and spent a few moments exchanging pleasantries with the outgoing older woman. There was no easy way to segue from thanks for taking the time to return my call to I was switched at birth on your watch, but Leah managed to convey the basics of her story.
“What?” Joyce squawked. “No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“I’ve heard switched-at-birth stories, of course, but that type of a mistake is actually really, really uncommon. It’s blowing my mind to think that this happened to you during one of my shifts.”
“It’s true that cases like mine are extremely rare, but maybe not quite as rare as we thought a few years ago. Then, no one could easily test their DNA, so an unknown number of cases likely went undiscovered. Now we can inexpensively submit our DNA to a lab. I’ve watched interviews of two other people who discovered they were switched at birth the same way that I did.”
“Jiminy Cricket!” Joyce made a whoeee sound. “You said you were born twenty-eight years ago?”
“Yes, I turned twenty-eight this past February. By chance, do you remember anything about me? Or my parents, Erica and Todd Montgomery? Or my biological mother and father, Trina and Jonathan Brookside?”
“I’m sorry, hon. I don’t. I’ve been working in labor and delivery now for almost forty years. I’ve cared for so many mothers and babies. So many.”
“I understand.” The chance that one of the nurses would remember her or her parents had been a long shot. “I was switched with a baby named Sophie.” She explained the facts of her birth and Sophie’s birth.
“How close together were you born?”
“Eighteen minutes.”
Joyce gave another whoeee. “Sophie would have been brought to the nursery, too. And neither mother would have had a chance to get a good look at the face of her child.”
“Do you think it’s most likely that the switch occurred in the nursery?”
“Yep, I do.”
“According to the hospital records, Lois Simpson, Bonnie O’Reilly, and Tracy Segura were working the same shift that you were. Do you remember those women?”
“Lois Simpson! Now, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. A long, long time. She and Bonnie were of a different generation, my parents’ generation. Lois was sweet and motherly. I remember that we celebrated her retirement with a cake decorated to look like an RV because she and her husband planned to travel around in one. Do you know what happened to her?”
“She passed away two years ago, at the age of eighty-six.”
“I hope she and her husband burned up the highways in their RV.”
“What about Bonnie O’Reilly?”
“Bonnie I knew better. Our shifts aligned often during my six years at Magnolia Avenue. Bonnie’s like one of those stern RNs in movies. Strict, but with a heart of gold.”
Outside, the trees of Leah’s backyard preened with autumn color. “Approximately how old would she have been at the time of my birth?”
“Fifty-ish, I’d say.”
“Do you remember anything else about her?”
“She was single. Oh, and she had at least one . . . maybe two children. That’s about all I recall.”
“And Tracy? Any memories of her?”
“Tracy was young. Always rubbed me the wrong way. She was uptight and pessimistic and since I’m the opposite of those things, I have a hard time with people like that. We worked together for a couple of years before she was let go.”
“Why was she let go?”
“Bad attitude. With supervisors and patients alike.”
“I’m hoping to chat with Bonnie and Tracy, too. Do you have contact details for either of them, by chance?”
“Hmm. When I moved south and started at a different hospital, I lost touch with both of them, but I’ll dig around for you. Back in the day, I bent over backward to keep my address book and my Christmas card list up-to-date. I might have contact details for them somewhere.”
“Thanks for checking for me. I appreciate it.”
“Look, I don’t think that I was the one who accidentally switched you with that other little girl,” Joyce said. “But if I was, I’m really sorry. I never would have wanted that for any of my babies. Never on God’s green earth.”
They said their good-byes.
Leah wasn’t the best at reading people, but Joyce seemed genuine. It could be, though, that Joyce’s jovial personality was a costume constructed to put people at ease. For all Leah knew, Joyce’s motives might truly be a dark river, and she’d switched the babies on purpose.
First thing the following morning, Leah found a text waiting for her from Joyce.
Score! 1990s address book for the win!
She’d included phone numbers and addresses for Bonnie O’Reilly and Tracy Segura, then closed with
Let me know if there’s anything else I can do! I’m a pack rat, so I might be able to find more stuff from my years at Magnolia Avenue Hospital in one of my closets. LOL!
Since a phone call at such an early hour wouldn’t be considered polite, Leah waited until her lunch break to dial the numbers Joyce had supplied for Tracy and Bonnie. Both calls ended in error messages announcing that the number was no longer in service. She tried them a second time, just to make sure she’d input the digits correctly. She had. Error messages again.
Inside her desk drawer, she located the cute package of notecards one of her students had given her. Bonnie and Tracy no longer used their old phone numbers, but they might still live at their old addresses. She’d write two notes introducing herself as a former patient, expressing her desire for a brief chat, and supplying her phone number.
She stilled, thinking. It might be best to address the letters to Bonnie and Tracy “or current resident.” Otherwise, should new people live at the addresses and receive something addressed to an old tenant, they’d almost certainly trash her letters.
On her way home, she’d drop them by the post office in time to go out with today’s mail.
Since Sebastian had returned to Atlanta early Monday morning, he’d gone through his days feeling each of the one hundred-plus miles separating him from Leah.
Talking to her on the phone wasn’t nearly as good as being with her in person, but it helped. She’d informed him that non-couples shouldn’t talk on the phone for more than thirty minutes per day. So he’d been using up all thirty of his daily minutes.
He’d also requested a week’s vacation from work. When the woman in HR had asked him when he wanted time off, he’d answered, “As soon as possible.” He needed uninterrupted days with Leah in Misty River.
On Wednesday evening, he was stretched out on the sofa in his apartment wearing track pants and an old Harvard T-shirt. He and Leah had been on the phone for twenty minutes so far. While they’d talked, he’d been imagining her in her stylish, uncluttered little house.
“Will you come see me this weekend?” He’d asked the same question for three nights in a row. They’d scheduled him to be on call Saturday and Sunday, which meant he couldn’t leave Atlanta. He was trying to be patient and not bossy, but he didn’t think it was working. He felt bossy about this subject, because he didn’t want to go two weeks without seeing her.
“No, I will not come see you this weekend.”
He palmed the soccer ball that lay on the carpet next to him and began tossing it over his head one-handed and catching it one-handed. “But you have four days off,” he pointed out. The school district was giving their staff and students a vacation Friday and Monday for fall break.
“Yes, but you’re not my boyfriend. And I’m not inclined to take weekend trips to visit male friends.”
“Right, but until now you haven’t had a male friend that you kiss. . . . Have you?”
She sniffed. “No.”
“I want to see you. Come see me.”
“You’re going to be on call! You probably won’t have time to spend with anyone.”
“I’ll have plenty of time to spend with you,” he vowed. “Try me.”
“Every time I contemplate leaving Dylan for the weekend, I envision a montage of party scenes from high school movies. Kids drinking beer out of red cups and making out on every piece of furniture.”
“You can leave him with the older couple you told me about.”
“Tess and Rudy?”
“Sure.”
“Excellent idea!” He could tell from her voice she was pretending to be astonished by his brilliance. “The answer’s no.”
Ben’s classroom was empty, except for him, when Leah stepped inside it the following day. “Hello.”
He twisted from where he’d been writing on his board. “Hello.” He regarded her pleasantly, but not as openly as usual. She might be mistaken, but she thought she saw guardedness in his eyes.
“I’m going to lunch and wanted to see if you were interested in joining me.”
“I’m meeting a parent in the foyer in a few minutes, but I’ll walk toward the break room with you.”
It was a good sign that he’d offered to walk with her. Wasn’t it? She waited while he capped his marker.
Usually, they chatted daily and shared lunch with Connor and their other teacher friends a few times a week. Since her dates with Sebastian last weekend, he hadn’t stopped by her room or texted. She’d opted to give him space at first. But, at this point, she was beginning to worry that giving him space might have been the wrong approach. It was possible that he’d translated the distance she’d extended to him as indifference on her part.
She frequently found herself at a loss when it came to navigating relationship dynamics. What would someone with a high EI do in this predicament? It seemed that they’d reach out to Ben.
They walked down the mostly deserted hallway lined on both sides with lockers. “Sebastian told me that you encouraged him to ask me out,” she said.
He slipped his hands into the pockets of the flat front beige pants he wore with a green-and-white-checked button-down. “Yeah. I did.”
“That was nice of you.”
“He’s a good friend.”
“Right, and the last thing I’d want to do is get in the middle of your friendship with him.”
They turned a corner in silence. “You won’t.”
“Or ruin my friendship with you.”
“You won’t.”
“Ben.” She stopped several yards from the break room.
He stopped, too, meeting her eyes.
“Is it going to upset you if I go on more dates with him? Because, if so, I won’t go.”
“Do you want to go on more dates with him?”
“I’m conflicted about that,” she admitted. “But I think I do.”
She saw maturity in the lines beside his eyes, lines which usually held laughter. “Sebastian is too solitary for his own good. It would mean the world to him to date someone like you, Leah.”
She metabolized that. “Okay, but what about you? I’ve known you much longer than I’ve known him. You’re important to me, and I’m trying to be sensitive to your feelings.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m fine.”
“Will you still want to hang out with me if I’m . . . seeing him?”
“I’ll still want to hang out with you. Definitely. It’s just . . .” He looked to the side, then looked back at her. “Maybe give me a little more time?”
“Of course. Is there anything else I can do?”
“Let a week or two or fifty pass before talking to me about your relationship with Sebastian.”
“Agreed. Anything else?”
“Blueberry muffins.”
“Blueberry muffins?”
“The next time you bake blueberry muffins with crumb topping, bring me some, and we’ll call it good.”
Ben truly was one of the best guys she knew. “Deal,” she said, relieved.
Connor walked toward them from the opposite direction. He and Ben exchanged a fist bump.
“Ben has a meeting with a parent,” Leah told him, “so it’ll just be the two of us and our swanky packed lunches today.”
“Turkey sandwich for you?” Ben asked Leah.
“Indeed. Veggie, hummus, and ham wrap for you?” she asked Connor.
“You got it. It won’t be the same without you, Ben.”
“I know. I’m the fun one of this group.” He made an amused sound and sauntered off. “I’m trusting you two to muddle through without me.”
Connor opened the break room door for Leah with a flourish. “Shall we?”
Hello, this is Arthur Duncan. I’m calling about the letter you sent to my house. You said you were looking for the lady who used to live here. Tracy?”
“Yes,” Leah answered, pausing midway through the process of unloading groceries from her shopping cart into her trunk. She cupped her free hand over the phone to hear him better. Friday evening dusk hovered over the parking lot. “I’m Leah Montgomery. Thanks so much for calling.”
“You bet. Ah, well, we bought this house from Tracy fifteen years ago now.” Arthur had a thick Georgia accent and a rasp in his tone that indicated age. “She gave me her phone number in case something came up and I needed to reach her. Sure enough, that happened a couple of times. Ah . . . after I read your letter, I checked my files to see if I still had her number. Turns out, I did. I can go ahead and give it to you if you have a pencil handy.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you so much.”
What she actually had handy: the twenty-first century equivalent of a pencil and paper. Leah opened the notes app on her phone and typed the numbers into it as he spoke.
Arthur demonstrated that there were still plenty of people left in the world willing to do favors for strangers. She thanked him profusely, disconnected, finished unloading her groceries, then settled behind the wheel of her Honda. The late October nights had begun to turn cool, so she ratcheted up her car’s heater.
She compared the number Arthur had given her for Tracy to the number Joyce had given her for Tracy and saw that the numbers were different. Hope stirred as she placed a call to the number Arthur had provided.
“Hello?” a woman answered, with a tone both suspicious and slightly sour.
In the friendliest and most appreciative way possible, Leah explained her identity and connection to Tracy.
“Are you the one who sent me the Facebook message?”
Leah winced. “Yes.”
“How did you get this number?”
Leah shared the process she’d followed.
Stony silence.
“I won’t be able to set this aside and move on,” Leah said, “until I’ve done everything I can to find answers. I’d really like to talk with you.”
“I’m not a phone talker. The government listens to everything we say.”
Leah didn’t presume that the government would be interested in this phone call unless Tracy was involved in espionage. “If you’d rather speak in person, I’m willing to drive to meet you.”
Another helping of silence that even Leah recognized as awkward.
“I’m having lunch with my mother tomorrow downtown, near the corner of Edgewood and Peachtree,” Tracy said. “There’s a park across from the restaurant. I can meet you there at 12:45.”
Edgewood and Peachtree—an intersection in Atlanta. “I’ll be there.”
“I have red hair, and I’ll wear a gray coat.”
Three hours later, Sebastian entered his apartment, lowered heavily onto one of the kitchen table chairs, and called Leah. He was so tired he couldn’t think about dinner or about changing out of his suit or even about standing up until he’d heard her voice.
“Good evening,” she said.
Instantly, he started to smile. “Hey. Will you come see me this weekend?” He could drain Isabella’s stomach, repair VSDs, study echocardiograms, and debate what to do about fixing a bad repair done by a hack. But in order to do all of those things, he had to know when he’d get to see her again.
“Actually,” she said, “yes.”
“What?” He sat up straight. “You will?”
She told him that one of the nurses who’d cared for her at Magnolia Avenue Hospital was willing to meet her tomorrow in Atlanta.
Thank God. “My apartment only has one bedroom,” he told her, “but you’re welcome to stay in it. I’ll take the couch.”
“I will not be staying in your apartment, I—”
“I’ll book you a hotel room, then. There’s a hotel across the street and a few doors down from my building.”
“I’m delighted to inform you that I’ve already booked and paid for my hotel room. It’s non-changeable and non-refundable.”
“Leah,” he groaned.
“I learned something from all those non-returnable gifts you sent us.”
“Tell me you’re going to get in the car right now and start driving.”
“I am not. I have to get Dylan squared away with Tess and Rudy tomorrow morning. It will take some time to bring them up to speed because I want to ensure Dylan’s prohibited from situations that involve red plastic cups and teens making out on furniture while I’m gone. I should be there by mid-morning tomorrow.”
“And you’ll stay in Atlanta until Monday?”
“Yes.”
Thank God.