Chapter 11
Elena Ruiz was alive.
We found out because Claire never stopped digging.
She had spent half her life searching for records.
She knew the back doors.
Old clerks.
Nurses with guilty consciences.
Retired case workers who still kept paper files in garages.
One of them remembered Elena.
“She was scared,” the woman said. “She kept saying the clinic took her baby.”
My stomach turned.
Poppy’s baby blanket was still folded in her memory box at home.
I had kissed that blanket a thousand times.
Now I wondered if another mother had reached for it first.
Detective Collins traced Elena to a shelter in Nevada.
She lived under another name.
When Lydia called, Elena did not believe her.
Then I got on the phone.
“My name is Audrey. I adopted a baby girl six years ago. Her name is Poppy.”
Silence.
Then a sob so deep I felt it in my bones.
“She had a flower birthmark near her left shoulder.”
I covered my mouth.
“Yes.”
Elena cried harder.
“They told me she died.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
Poppy was in the next room singing to herself.
Alive.
Loved.
Stolen.
Elena flew in under protection.
I did not know how to meet the woman whose child I had raised.
I wore a blue sweater because Poppy said it made me look calm.
I was not calm.
Elena walked into Lydia’s office with a worn backpack and shaking hands.
She looked at me.
Then at Poppy.
Poppy stared back.
Elena whispered, “Hi, flower.”
Poppy looked at me.
“Mommy?”
I knelt.
“This is Elena. She knew you when you were a tiny baby.”
Poppy studied her.
Then asked, “Did you love me?”
May you like
Elena broke.
“Yes,” she sobbed. “Every second.”
