Chapter 6 - RACHEL CROSS MAY HAVE SURVIVEDThe death certificate problem became more serious.
Our Rachel:
Rachel Elaine Cross.
Born May 14, 1973.
The hospital death record:
Rachel Elise Cross.
Born May 4, 1972.
Someone later linked the wrong hospital record to the right county certificate.
Could be clerical error.
Then another document.
Rachel Elaine Cross’s Social Security number showed earnings three years after her supposed death.
Small.
From a rehabilitation center in New Mexico.
Employee name:
R. Elaine Carter.
Same first and middle name.
Different surname.
Gabriel went silent when he saw it.
We did not celebrate.
Identity fraud exists.
Numbers get reused.
But then a staff photograph from 2007 surfaced.
A woman in the back row.
Older.
Thin.
Hair cut short.
My mother.
I knew her face.
Even after twenty years.
Gabriel whispered:
“That’s her.”
I cried.
Then immediately became angry.
Alive?
Where had she been?
Why didn’t she find us?
May you like
The answer, if she was truly Rachel, might hurt.
Hope is not automatically kind.
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