There were bottles on the nightstand.
Formula.
Diapers.
A portable bassinet in the corner.
For several seconds, I couldn’t move.
Then Alex opened his eyes.
“Lucia…”
All the color disappeared from his face.
But I wasn’t looking at him anymore.
I was looking at the baby.
Just beneath his left ear was a reddish birthmark shaped almost like a crescent.
I had the same one.
My mother used to kiss it when I was little and call it an angel’s footprint.
I stepped closer.
The baby’s nose.
His mouth.
Something about his face felt disturbingly familiar.
“Why does that baby look like me?”
Alex slowly sat up.
“It’s not what you think.”
“There is a newborn in our bed, Alex. We’re considerably past that sentence.”
“I wasn’t unfaithful.”
“Then whose baby is this?”
He looked down at the child.
“His name is Leo.”
“I didn’t ask his name.”
My voice started shaking.
“Who is he?”
Alex was silent for several seconds.
Then he said:
“His mother was Sara Vidal.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Who was she?”
“My foster sister.”
Alex had grown up in foster care in Chicago.
In nine years of marriage, he’d told me very little about that part of his childhood.
He said people came and went.
Eventually, he’d stopped expecting anyone to stay.
“Sara and I lived in the same foster home for about four years,” he explained. “Then we were separated.”
“When did you find her again?”
