Chapter 11 - Elise Marlowe
The other mother wanted to meet me.
I said yes.
Her daughter had been placed in my room.
My daughter had been placed in hers.
She had every right to anger too.
Elise was twenty-nine.
First child.
Emergency C-section.
She said:
“I was asleep when they brought a bassinet in.”
Then:
“I woke up and looked over. I thought she looked different, but newborns change every hour and I had barely seen mine.”
That mattered.
Aloysius had gambled on exactly that uncertainty.
Elise started crying.
“What if I’d fed your baby?”
“That would not have made you responsible.”
“What if you’d taken mine?”
“I didn’t.”
“But he wanted you to.”
“Yes.”
She looked furious.
Not at me.
At him.
Both families later agreed to independent confirmatory testing because confidence after a newborn identification event matters.
The results confirmed:
My daughter was mine.
Elise’s daughter was hers.
No hidden biological twist.
No hospital secretly raising the wrong children for years.
May you like
The switch lasted minutes.
That was enough.
