Chapter 11 - The Creeping Suspicion
For twelve long years, I kept that little blue cap hidden in a drawer. It was my only tangible connection to a child I never held. I had spent over a decade grieving a ghost, lacking even a tiny headstone in a cemetery where I could lay flowers and mourn my son properly.
Sitting on the floor that night, holding the soft blue yarn, for the first time in twelve years, I did not press the cap against my face and cry. I only stared at it, my military-trained mind dissecting the past with a cold, terrifying logic.
Why had the doctors allowed my sister to make medical decisions without my consent? Why was there no death certificate mailed to my home? Why had no one ever let me see my baby’s face?
I told absolutely no one about the horrific suspicion blooming in my chest. If I voiced it aloud, they would have called me clinically unstable. They would have said the trauma of the anniversary scandal had finally broken my mind, and now I was desperately trying to dig up ancient tragedies to cope with the pain.
But then, a chilling memory struck me like a physical blow.
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Natalie’s own son, Oliver, had been born that exact same week. The very same week she claimed I had given birth to a stillborn, she announced she had delivered a healthy baby boy in a different hospital across the state.
Now, twelve years later, Oliver was a tall, quiet boy. A boy who had my father’s distinct, deep-set hazel eyes. And, more terrifyingly, a boy who possessed the exact same tiny, crescent-shaped birthmark on the left side of his chin that I had.
