She Saw the Birthmark and Dropped to Her Knees

CHAPTER 3 - THE NURSE WHO LOOKED AWAY

Linda Voss had come in every Thursday for daisies.

Emma had known her for two years as a lonely retired nurse who liked yellow flowers and paid in exact change.

Now Linda looked as if the floor had disappeared under her.

"I can explain," she said, but no one had asked a question yet.

Daniel stood so suddenly his chair scraped hard across the tile. "You."

Margaret rose too, though she had to brace herself on the counter. "You told me my daughter died."

Linda's eyes filled with tears, but Emma noticed something else first. Not guilt alone. Fear.

"Back room," Emma said sharply.

It surprised all of them, including herself.

A few minutes later they were crowded into the tiny work area behind the cooler. Buckets of carnations lined one wall. The hum of refrigeration sounded far too calm.

Linda twisted her gloves in her hands. "The maternity home was closing. There were debts. Pressure. Girls sent there quietly, babies moved quietly. It wasn't what people thought."

Emma felt cold. "Did you take me?"

Linda shook her head fast. "No. But I signed papers I should never have signed."

Margaret made a wounded sound. "Why?"

"Because your baby was alive," Linda whispered. "And because someone wanted her gone from your life."

Daniel stared. "Who?"

Linda looked at him then, not Margaret.

At first Emma did not understand that look.

Then she did.

"Not him," Linda said. "His father."

No one spoke.

Daniel's face changed, years seeming to pass over it in an instant. His father had died five years earlier. Emma could see that from his expression before he even said a word.

Linda continued. "Margaret was seventeen. Daniel came from a powerful, rigid family. His father said the child would ruin his son's future. He arranged a private adoption through the church and ordered me to tell you the baby had died in the fire."

Margaret put a hand over her mouth.

Daniel looked sick. "My father told me Margaret had chosen not to see me again."

Linda reached into her purse with shaking hands and removed a folded envelope.

"I kept one thing I was never supposed to keep."

Across the front, in faded ink, were the words: For my daughter, if God ever returns her to me.

"I lied once, and it destroyed three lives."

Emma stared at the envelope, and for the first time, she wanted to know what was inside.