Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN THE HOSPITAL PHOTOSt. Agnes had closed years earlier.
Its archives were transferred to a regional medical network.
Records from 1988 were incomplete.
But not gone.
Ethan’s delivery file contained something strange.
Margaret had been admitted while pregnant.
She had given birth.
To a male infant.
So how could she not be Ethan’s biological mother?
Then we found the nursery ledger.
Two boys born within twenty minutes.
Baby Harrington.
Baby Moreno.
I stared at the name.
Moreno.
The other mother was listed as:
Elena Moreno.
Twenty-one years old.
Unmarried.
The nursery notes showed both infants transferred temporarily for observation after a brief power disruption caused problems with electronic tagging equipment.
This was before modern barcode systems.
Paper bands.
Handwritten charts.
Human beings.
The possibility was horrifyingly obvious.
Ethan looked at me.
“You think we were switched?”
I didn’t answer.
We needed evidence.
Then an archived hospital photograph surfaced.
A nurse had donated old pictures during a reunion.
In one, Margaret stood near a bassinet.
Beside her was another young woman.
Dark hair.
Brown eyes.
And in her arms was a newborn boy.
On the back, someone had written:
Margaret Harrington & Elena Moreno — nursery buddies, Oct. 1988
Ethan stared at Elena’s face for a long time.
Then whispered:
May you like
“She looks like me.”
She did.
