“This baby,” I said slowly, looking down at the small, sleeping face against my shoulder, “is one of them. One of the babies from this.”
“She’s Priya’s,” Ethan said. “Her third pregnancy for Dad’s operation. She told me the first two, she never even saw the babies, they were taken almost immediately after delivery, handed over to whatever client
had paid for them. This time, something went wrong with the arrangement. The client backed out at the last minute, some legal problem in their home country, and Dad told Priya he’d simply find another
buyer, that the delay wouldn’t be a problem.”
“And Priya didn’t want that,” I said, understanding, finally, the shape of what Ethan was describing.
“She didn’t want that,” he confirmed. “She said something changed in her, actually holding this baby in the hospital, understanding that Dad intended to simply sell her again to whoever came next. She
reached out to me because I was the only person she could think of who might actually understand what kind of man Dad really is, and who might help her get the baby somewhere safe before he found out she
was trying to keep her instead.”
“Where is Priya now,” I asked, a fresh wave of fear moving through me.
Ethan’s face went very still. “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s the part I need you to understand, Mom. That’s why I need this door locked. Three days ago, she called me from a number I didn’t recognize,
sounding terrified, telling me Dad’s people had found out she wasn’t planning to hand the baby over, and that I needed to take her somewhere safe immediately, that she’d find me once things settled down. I haven’t heard from her since.”
I felt a wave of nausea move through me, holding this tiny, innocent child whose mother might, at that very moment, be in genuine, mortal danger because of my own husband.
“We need to call the police,” I said.
“I know,” Ethan said. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that without it getting back to Dad before we’re ready, without giving him time to destroy evidence or disappear entirely. That’s why I brought all
of this,” he gestured at the suitcase, “everything Priya managed to document before things fell apart, financial records, client names, photographs, enough evidence that I don’t think Dad can simply talk his
way out of it the way he’s apparently talked his way out of everything else his entire life.”
I want to describe what happened over the following several hours, because I think the deliberate, careful process we followed mattered enormously to how this entire situation eventually resolved.
I called my sister, Denise, first, someone I trusted completely and who lived only twenty minutes away, and I asked her to come immediately, without explaining the full situation over the phone,
understanding that whatever conversation followed needed to happen in person, with someone I trusted helping me think clearly through what was, without question, the most disorienting and frightening
development of my entire adult life.
While we waited for Denise, I made up the guest room for Ethan, moving quickly, almost robotically,
needing something ordinary to do with my hands. I found an old bassinet attachment in the garage, a relic from when Ethan himself had been an infant, and cleaned it as best I could before lining it with
towels. Ethan sat at the kitchen table the entire time, watching me work, occasionally reaching out to touch the baby’s small foot through the blanket, as if reassuring himself she was still there.
“What’s her name,” I asked at one point.
“Priya hadn’t decided yet,” Ethan said. “She kept saying she wanted to wait, that naming her felt like it
