The Silver Tag Marked Baby #2

CHAPTER 3 - THE LETTER IN THE BLANKET

Dana's fingers shook so badly she almost dropped the paper.

It was thin, yellowed, and folded into a square so many times the edges had gone soft. Ryan stood on one side of her. The other boy stood on the other, hugging himself in that stained yellow shirt. The silver tag rested against his chest.

Miss Elena nodded once. "Read it."

Dana opened the note.

The handwriting hit her first.

Marcus.

Her husband.

Ryan's father.

If anything ever happens and they say only one baby survived, don't believe them. They are moving too fast. They won't let me see the second boy. I heard a nurse say "transfer." I'm going after him. If I don't come back, tell Dana I tried.

Dana could not breathe.

Marcus had died in a highway accident three days after the twins were born. She had always believed grief had swallowed him before he could even think clearly. But this letter said he had known. He had known one of their sons was alive.

Ryan looked up at her. "I had a brother?"

Dana dropped to the bench. "I didn't know," she whispered. "Baby, I swear to you, I didn't know."

The second boy's face did not soften. "Then why didn't you look?"

The question landed harder than any accusation.

Because she had been twenty-nine and broken. Because the doctor had spoken with authority. Because the funeral had been small. Because one surviving baby had needed all the strength she had left. None of those answers sounded good enough now.

"What is your name?" she asked him quietly.

He hesitated. "At the shelter they call me Caleb."

Miss Elena crossed her arms. "He came in with no papers. No birth certificate. No family record. Just that tag and the blanket."

Dana read the note again, this time catching one final line written at the bottom.

Ask for Nurse Willa Grant. She knows.

Dana stood so quickly the bench scraped the floor.

Miss Elena frowned. "Where are you going?"

Dana looked at both boys, one in blue wool, one in worn denim.

"To find the woman who stole my son," she said.

Then a voice behind them answered, old and trembling.

"I didn't steal him."

A white-haired woman in a wheelchair sat near the gate window, tears on her cheeks.

"I saved him."