The first words my husband spoke after waking from his coma were, “Don’t let my wife find the red diary,”
The phone slipped from my hand and landed on the kitchen floor. I stared at it, unable to breathe. “Someone visited him?” I whispered after picking it back up. “Yes,” the nurse replied. “She signed in as Mrs. Claire Walker. She stayed for almost twenty minutes.” “What did she look like?” There was a pause. “The receptionist said she looked almost exactly like the photo on your driver’s license.” My heart pounded. “I’m coming.” I grabbed the blue notebook and drove to the hospital faster than I ever had before. The receptionist immediately recognized me. “Mrs. Walker?” she asked, frowning. “Didn’t you already leave?” My stomach dropped. “No.” She turned her monitor toward me. A security camera image filled the screen. My knees nearly gave out. The woman entering Nathan’s room looked exactly like me. The same hair. The same height. Even the same gray coat I was wearing. The only difference was a tiny white scar near her left eyebrow. I didn’t have one. “Who is she?” I whispered. “We assumed it was you,” the receptionist replied. I rushed into Nathan’s room. He looked exhausted but alert. The moment he saw me, his expression changed. “You’re back already?” he asked. “Nathan, I wasn’t here this morning.” His face turned pale. “What?” I locked the door. “Who visited you?” He slowly sat upright. “I thought it was you.” “What did she want?” “The notebook.” I held it up. “This one?” His eyes widened. “She didn’t find it.” “Who is she?” Nathan covered his face with both hands. “I prayed you’d never have to ask that question.” “Then answer it.” He remained silent for several seconds before quietly saying, “Her name is Caroline.” “Who is Caroline?” Tears filled his eyes. “My first wife.” I felt the room spinning. “You told me you’d never been married before.” “Because everyone believed Caroline died eleven years ago.” I stared at him. “You lied to me.” “I thought she had died.” “Thought?” He nodded. “She disappeared after our daughter was born.” I looked down at the photograph from the notebook. “The baby.” Nathan whispered, “Her name was Lily.” My voice trembled. “You had another child.” “Yes.” “Where is she?” He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.” Before I could ask another question, Melissa entered the room. The moment she saw the notebook in my hands, she stopped walking. “You read it,” she said quietly. “Not all of it.” Melissa looked at Nathan. “She deserves the truth.” Nathan nodded without speaking. Melissa took a deep breath. “Eleven years ago Caroline developed severe postpartum depression. She disappeared one night with the baby. Police searched for months but never found either of them.” “Then who was the woman here this morning?” I asked. Melissa looked toward Nathan. “Apparently… Caroline.” My heart skipped. “She can’t just walk into a hospital after eleven years.” “Unless she’s been watching him.” Nathan whispered. “She has.” Silence filled the room. I slowly opened the notebook again. Most of the names listed inside now made sense. They were private investigators, hospitals, shelters, and missing persons organizations. Nathan had spent eleven years searching for his wife and daughter without telling anyone. “Why keep this from me?” I asked. “Because every lead ended the same way.” “How?” “Someone always knew where I was before I arrived.” My phone buzzed. An unknown number had sent a single photograph. It showed Nathan sleeping in his hospital bed only minutes earlier. Standing beside him was the woman from the security camera. On the back of her coat someone had written one sentence with black marker. He still belongs to us. Before I could react, another message arrived. Check the last page. My hands shook as I turned to the back of the notebook. The final page had been glued shut. I carefully separated the paper. Hidden inside was a birth certificate. The mother’s name read Caroline Walker. The father’s name read Nathan Walker. But the baby’s name wasn’t Lily. It was Claire Walker. I stared at it in disbelief. “Nathan…” I whispered. “Why is my name on your daughter’s birth certificate?” Nathan looked at the document, and every bit of color disappeared from his face. “No,” he whispered. “That’s impossible.” Melissa grabbed the certificate. “This isn’t right.” “It’s official,” I said. Nathan suddenly remembered something. “The woman this morning…” He looked at me in horror. “She kept asking if I remembered the nursery fire.” “What nursery fire?” I asked. He swallowed hard. “The police believed Lily died in that fire.” My pulse raced. “But you said her body was never found.” “It wasn’t.” Melissa slowly lowered the birth certificate onto the bed. “Nathan…” she whispered. “Look at the registration number.” Nathan stared at it for several seconds before grabbing another document from the notebook. Both numbers matched exactly. The hospital had issued two birth certificates with the same registration number eleven years apart. “Someone replaced the records,” Melissa said. Before anyone could speak again, the television mounted on the hospital wall suddenly switched on by itself. Every channel displayed the same emergency news bulletin. Police are searching for an unidentified woman who entered Memorial Hospital this morning using forged identification. A security image appeared on the screen. It was the woman who looked like me. The reporter continued, “Authorities believe the woman abducted a newborn girl from the same hospital eleven years ago.” My heart stopped. The screen changed to an age-progressed image of the missing child. The room fell silent. The girl’s projected adult face wasn’t a stranger. It was mine. I slowly looked at Nathan. “If that’s me…” My voice broke. “Then who have I been for the last eleven years?” Nathan couldn’t answer. At that exact moment, the hospital room door opened. A nurse wheeled in an elderly woman carrying a worn yellow baby blanket. She looked directly at me, began crying, and whispered, “Lily… I finally found you.”