Chapter 3

The nurse pushed my wheelchair to the viewing window, then locked the wheels before I could ask her to take me through the door. My hospital bracelet pulled against my swollen wrist when I reached for the glass.

I could see my daughter in Claire’s arms, forty feet away.

Daniel stood beside his sister. His mother had gathered three relatives around them, and every face bent toward the yellow blanket as if I had no claim on what it held. Claire lifted my daughter high enough for everyone to see the card tucked against the blanket.

EMMA CLAIRE.

I pressed my palm to the window. We had chosen Emma together, but the second name was mine. Claire had put it after her own.

“That isn’t her name.”

The nurse behind me lowered her voice. “They can’t hear you through this glass.”

“Then open the door.”

“I’m not authorized to let you enter the ward.” She kept one hand on the wheelchair, and I felt her fingers tighten around the handle. “Your access was changed this morning.”

“I gave birth to her this morning.”

Claire kissed my daughter’s covered head. The relatives smiled. Daniel looked toward the window, and his mouth flattened when he saw me.

He crossed the ward without taking the baby from his sister. When he reached the glass, he picked up the phone mounted on his side. The nurse placed the matching receiver in my hand.

“You should be in bed,” he said.

“You should put my daughter in my arms.”

“Claire is only introducing her to the family.”

“She called her Emma Claire.”

Daniel glanced back. Claire was showing the card to another relative, her thumb covering my last name.

“We can discuss the name when you’re stronger.”

My grip tightened on the receiver until the rubber squeaked. “Tell Claire to give her back.”

His mother moved into the edge of the window. The violet fountain pen rested in her breast pocket, its silver clip catching the ward lights. Her initials faced me as she leaned close to Daniel.

He listened to her, then spoke into the phone. “You’re making a scene.”

“I’m behind glass.”

“You need rest. The nurses agree.”

The nurse beside me reached past my shoulder and tapped the glass with one knuckle. Daniel looked at her.

“I did not agree,” she said, loud enough for my receiver to carry her words. “And I documented what you admitted.”

His hand tightened around the phone.

Claire turned my daughter toward the relatives again. I could see one small fist above the blanket, opening and closing while strangers repeated the wrong name.

“Bring Emma to me,” I said.

Daniel’s mother removed the violet pen from her pocket. She rolled it between two fingers, slow and easy, while she watched me through the glass.

Daniel lowered his voice. “The authorization says Claire has access.”

“The authorization has my forged name.”

“It has your signature.”

“It has her ink.”

The nurse unlocked my wheels. She pulled me back from the window and pushed me into a narrow alcove where a medication cart blocked Daniel’s view. From a folder under the cart, she removed a photocopied page.

“I wasn’t supposed to show you this,” she said. “But I checked the time after what happened in your room.”

The copy magnified my signature across half the page. Every loop had broken edges from the copier, but the ink beneath them remained dark violet. At the bottom, beside the authorization removing my maternal access, a machine had printed the submission time.

4:12 a.m.

I had not reached the hospital until 5:03.

My thumb covered the false curve of my last name. “They filed this before I came in.”

The nurse pointed to a second time printed near the top. “This version was created yesterday evening. The hospital received it this morning.”

“Before labor started?”

“Yes.”

Through the gap beside the cart, I watched Daniel’s mother return the pen to her pocket. Claire still held my daughter. Daniel stood between them and the locked door, staring at the empty place where my wheelchair had been.

I folded the photocopy once, keeping the violet signature on the outside.

They had planned to take my daughter before anyone knew whether I would survive labor.