I Stole My Baby Back

My husband Zachs childhood best friend, Maisie, had a pathology. She called it her honest baby routine.

The very first time we met, she looked up at me with wide, doll-like eyes and asked in a sugary, high-pitched coo, Lola, before you married Zachy, how many boyfriends did you sleep with? How many times did you get pregnant? You have to tell Maisie the absolute truth!

I was deeply unsettled, but Zach only laughed and squeezed my hand. "Maisie is just a sweet kid at heart. She speaks without a filter, Lola. She doesn't mean any harm."

Later, when I was hospitalized on bed rest to save my difficult pregnancy, she came to visit, holding a pastel pink boba tea. She stood by my bedside, her eyes fixed on my swollen belly without blinking.

"Maisie heard that if a girl has too many abortions, her uterus gets ruined and she can't hold a baby. Lola must have been dishonest. She must have kept her past from Zachy."

Zachs face had darkened slightly then, but he said nothing.

Then came the day I finally gave birth to my son. Maisie showed up at the hospital again, pouting as she pointed a finger at the babys face.

"Zachy, you and Lola both have light blue eyes. How does this tiny baby have dark brown eyes? Two blue-eyed people can't make a brown-eyed baby. Biology 101! Lola was dishonest. She lied to you."

I couldn't take it anymore. Driven to the edge of sanity, I demanded a DNA test right there in the ward.

But when the results came back, the unthinkable happenedthe baby was biologically mine, but he shared no genetic connection with Zach.

I was entirely paralyzed, staring at the paperwork in absolute disbelief. Zach, blind with rage, beat me until I was black and blue. My own mother declared she would never own a shameless daughter like me, dragging me out of the hospital room by my hair and throwing me onto the street.

In a daze of physical pain and profound betrayal, I stumbled into oncoming traffic.

And then, I woke up.

I gasped, looking down at my hands. I was back in the hospital bed, holding my newborn, preparing for my discharge.

It was the exact same day.

"Zachy, Maisie learned this in biology class."

"Two blue-eyed people physically cannot have a brown-eyed baby."

"So this little baby must belong to another man. Lola was dishonest. She kept secrets from you."

In the sterile, fluorescent-lit hospital room, I cradled the baby close, getting ready to leave. Zachs childhood friend stood near the door, wearing a ruffled pastel pink pinafore and clutching a plush pink rabbit, offering her "earnest" analysis.

My mother-in-law, Mrs. Taylor, turned on me instantly. Her sharp, manicured nails dug into my bare arm, pinching the flesh.

"Lola! What is the meaning of this?!"

The sharp, stinging pain anchored me. I was back.

In my previous life, this was the exact moment the nightmare had begun. The joyous atmosphere of the room had vanished in a second. Back then, Mrs. Taylors hand had cracked across my face before I could even process what was happening.

"You cheap tramp!" she had screamed. "I knew the baby didn't look like Zach! You've been carrying some random bastard!"

Zachs face had turned a terrifying shade of ash. "Lola, how could you? I gave you everything, and you put another mans child in my arms?"

And Maisie had stood in the corner, tapping her cheek with a childish finger. "Shame, shame. Lola is a big girl and she still tells lies. You have to be a good, honest girl like Maisie if you want people to love you."

In that lifetime, I had never even looked at another man after Zach and I became exclusive. Yet they had believed Maisies childishly packaged poison without a single hesitation.

I had demanded the DNA test to prove my innocence, only for the results to shatter my world. The baby was mine, but not Zach's. I had stood there, helpless and voiceless, as my own mother grabbed me by the neck and slammed my head against the hospital wall, screaming, "You shameless bitch! You've ruined our family's name! Why don't you just die?!" She had dragged me out, leaving me to wander into the path of a speeding truck.

But this time, I knew the truth.

I calmly placed the baby into Mrs. Taylors startled arms, quietly propped my phone up on the bedside table with the camera rolling, and walked directly over to Maisie.

"Newborns' eye colors can change over the first year, Maisie," I said, my voice steady and cold. "To throw out wild accusations with zero proof is called slander. By your logic, I could claim you had this baby with some random guy and snuck him into my bassinet. Would you confess to that?"

Maisie shrank back from my sudden intensity, her bottom lip trembling as she began to sob dramatically.

"I-I wasn't lying! That's what the schoolbooks say! Just because Maisie caught you doesn't mean you can bully me. Maisie feels so bullied..."

Zach stepped forward, thrusting himself between me and Maisie. "Enough! If you have nothing to hide, why are you attacking her? Maisie is honest. She has never told a lie in her life!" He turned, glaring furiously at my mother, Helen. "You swore to me she was pure, that she'd never even been in a serious relationship before we met! How do you explain this?!"

Mrs. Taylor joined in, pointing a trembling, accusatory finger at Helen. "A tramp like this had the nerve to take a hundred-thousand-dollar dowry from us? Give the money back!"

That hundred thousand dollars had already been spent. Helen had used it to buy my brother Cody a new car and put a down payment on his condo. There wasn't a cent left.

Paled by the onslaught from Zach and his mother, Helen turned her wrath on me. "Lola, speak! Who is the man? Why do you have to ruin a perfectly good life? How did I raise such a shameless daughter?!" Her breathing grew shallow with rage, and she lunged forward, hands aiming for my throat.

I was ready. I caught her wrists and shoved her back with all my strength.

"Stop! Am I your daughter, or is she? You believe a single sentence out of her mouth, but you won't even listen to me?"

Helen stumbled back, shocked that I had dared to resist her. She stared at me, her eyes wide with indignation. "You... you dared to push me?! The proof is staring us in the face, Lola! What is there to explain?!"

It was always like this. Since I was a child, Helen had lived by a simple rule: if someone accused me of something, I was automatically guilty.

"If they're talking about you, you must have done something to provoke it! Why else would they choose you?"

"You did something wrong and now you're lying! I'll teach you some respect!"

After I married Zach, it only got worse. Whenever we had a disagreement, Helen never cared about the details; she assumed it was entirely my fault.

"A wife submits to her husband. In my generation, no woman dared to argue with her man. You don't have to work, he provides for youwhat do you have to be miserable about?"

Seeing the chaos she had unleashed, Maisie peeked out from behind Zach and stuck her tongue out. "Mrs. Mitchell, you really need to teach her some manners. Dishonest girls are bad girls."

Helens face flushed red, then white, completely humiliated.

The commotion had grown so loud that patients and visitors from neighboring rooms were gathering at our open door, whispering among themselves.

"Unbelievable. Passing off a bastard baby as her husband's..."

"And she actually gave birth to it! She wanted him to be the sucker who pays for another man's kid."

"In the old days, a woman like that would have been run out of town."

Though they spoke in low murmurs, the words cut through the room clearly. Mrs. Taylors face turned purple with embarrassment. She rushed over and slammed the door shut, shutting out the onlookers.

Zachs chest rose and fell in heavy, ragged expansions. His fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles popped. "Are you still trying to protect the real father?!"

I let out a cold, hollow laugh. "How do you think this baby was made, Zach? Did you forget? It took three grueling, agonizing rounds of IVF for me to get pregnant. Why aren't you wondering if the hospital made a mistake? Why don't you care where our actual child is right now?!"

Zach froze, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. But Maisie immediately tugged at his sleeve, shaking his arm.

"Zachy, Maisie has more proof."

Every eye in the room locked onto her.

Maisie giggled, unzipping her plush bear backpack and pulling out a folded piece of paper, holding it up like a trophy.

"Look! This bad girl is Type A. Zachy is Type O. But the tiny baby is Type B. A Type A parent and a Type O parent physically cannot have a Type B baby."

Zach snatched the paper from her hand. As his eyes scanned the lab report, his face twisted in raw fury. He crumpled the sheet into a tight ball and hurled it directly at my face.

"Lola! What do you have to say to this?!"

Before I could blink, Mrs. Taylor lunged at me, her palm striking my cheek with a sickening crack.

"You cheap bitch! Give us back the hundred thousand!"

The sting of the slap burned, but this time, I didn't cry. I swung my hand back and slapped her right back, hard enough to make her stagger.

"I never touched a single dollar of that money! If you want it back, go talk to the people who spent it!"

In the next second, Zachs foot connected violently with my stomach. The force of the kick knocked me off the bed, sending me crashing onto the hard linoleum floor. The pain was blinding, robbing me of breath.

Before I could even attempt to stand, his boot struck my ribs.

"You crazy bitch! You dare lay a hand on my mother?!" He grabbed Helen by the arm and dragged her over, shoving her toward me. "Look at your psychotic daughter! Do something!"

Prodded by Zach, Helen let her embarrassment turn into violence. She dropped to her knees, straddling my waist, and began raining slaps down on my face.

"I raised you to be decent! To be honest! And you threw it all away! Zach gave you a perfect life, and you destroyed it!"

I lunged upward and bit her arm as hard as I could. She shrieked in pain, loosening her grip, and I used the opportunity to throw her off me.

I pushed myself up against the side of the bed. My face was throbbing, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, dripping steadily onto the cold floor. I knew I looked monstrous, but my eyes were clear.

Maisie shrank into Zachs chest, crying crocodile tears. "Zachy, did Maisie do something bad by telling the truth? If Maisie kept quiet, everyone wouldn't be fighting, and Mrs. Mitchell wouldn't have been hurt by that bad woman."

Zach stroked her hair, his voice dripping with uncharacteristic tenderness. "Shh, sweetie, its not your fault. You did the right thing. It's all her fault. She deserves everything she gets."

I spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor and stared at them. "Even with a blood type discrepancy, how does that prove I cheated? Why are you so absolutely certain the hospital didn't swap the baby? Unless... you already knew something."

Zachs face drained of color for a split second, replaced quickly by a mask of outrage. "Fine! You want to play the victim? Ill strip away every last bit of your dignity today. We'll do a paternity test right now, and you can explain the results to the judge."

He slammed his hand on the call button, summoning the nurse.

An hour later, the rapid-testing lab delivered the results. It was an exact replica of my previous life: I was the biological mother, but Zach had zero genetic relation to the child.

He gripped the document, shaking it in my face. "Lola! What lie are you going to invent now?!"

In my past life, this was where my mind had shattered, leaving me a hollow shell as they dragged me away.

But now, I reached out with lightning speed, snatched the paper from his hands, and gripped it tight.

"In about ten seconds," I whispered, "you're going to find out exactly what I have to say."

The heavy wooden door of the hospital room swung open, and two figures stepped inside.

At the sight of them, Zach and Maisie froze, the color completely vanishing from their faces.

"Lola..." Zach stammered, his voice cracking. "Why the hell did you call them?"