Chapter 1

I was still bleeding from the delivery when my husband’s sister carried my daughter into a room full of applause.

The wheelchair caught on the metal strip at the family lounge door, and pain pulled tight across my stomach. One nurse steadied my shoulder while the other pushed harder.

Claire held my daughter against her chest, wrapped in the yellow blanket I had packed three weeks before my due date. Daniel stood beside a table of paper cups and a bottle of champagne. My mother-in-law sat with a stack of papers, and beside her a young man in a gray suit watched her write.

Her violet fountain pen, engraved with her initials, was moving in her hand.

Everyone raised a cup except the nurses and me.

“To Claire,” Daniel said. His smile stayed fixed as he looked at the baby. “You waited so long to become a mother. She’s finally here.”

The paper cup bent under my fingers. “Give me my baby.”

Claire drew the yellow bundle closer. My daughter’s cheek rested against the pearl button on Claire’s blouse.

My mother-in-law did not stop writing. “You shouldn’t be out of recovery yet. Daniel, take her back before she upsets herself.”

“I said give her to me.” My voice came out rough, but every face in the room heard it.

The young man glanced at the nurses. One of them lowered her eyes to the wheelchair brake. The other adjusted the folded blanket over my knees though it did not need adjusting.

Daniel came to my side and placed one hand on the chair. “Nora. The anesthesia is making you confused. We talked about Claire holding the baby.”

“We never talked about this.” I pointed at the papers, and the movement pulled at the tape over my IV. “What is she signing?”

She finished the long stroke of a letter, lifted the pen, and set its violet tip down again. My name stood above the signature line in handwriting that was not mine.

The young man closed his notary stamp in his fist. “Ma’am, the consenting mother must sign in my presence.”

“She did,” my mother-in-law said, tapping the page with the pen. A violet dot spread beside my false signature. “She signed before the medication took full effect. You were present when she confirmed it.”

“I did not sign anything.” I gripped the paper cup until champagne ran over my knuckles. “That is my child.”

Claire gave a small laugh and looked down at my daughter as if I had made an awkward joke during her celebration. “Please don’t call her that in front of everyone. You agreed I would be her mother.”

A nurse picked up the champagne bottle and placed it farther from the edge. No one corrected Claire.

Daniel took the crushed cup from my hand and set it beside the bottle. “She’s being dramatic. She lost blood, she’s medicated, and she doesn’t remember what she said.”

“I remember giving birth.” I pressed my nails into my palm beneath the blanket. “I remember Daniel cutting the cord. I remember asking why no one brought her back.”

The second nurse cleared her throat. “The baby was released to the family lounge on the father’s authorization.”

“Then bring her to me.” I locked both hands around the wheelchair arms when Daniel tried to turn me toward the hall. “Now.”

My mother-in-law slid the papers toward the notary. “The adoption consent is signed. Stamp it.”

He stared at the violet signature. “She is disputing it in front of witnesses.”

“She is not competent at the moment,” Daniel said. He spoke to him, not to me. “You heard the nurse. She had surgery and lost blood.”

Claire shifted my daughter higher, covering the baby’s face with the yellow blanket. “Can we finish the photo before she ruins this? Mother brought the silver frame.”

My mother-in-law stood the frame beside the papers. Claire, Daniel, and my daughter already filled the picture inside it, taken while I lay in recovery. She straightened it for the nurses and the notary to see.

“Our first family photograph,” she said.

My empty hospital bracelet caught the light as I reached for the papers. My mother-in-law pulled them away, but the violet pen rolled toward me. I knew the scratch near its engraved initials. I had packed it to sign my daughter’s birth certificate.

I looked at Daniel. “How did she get my pen?”

Daniel’s hand tightened on the wheelchair handle. “I took it from your hospital bag and gave it to my mother.”