Someone Else's Life by Katie Dale Read Free Book Online Page A

her baby looked worse than ever and the ambulance still hadn’t arrived. I was desperate. The baby was going to die, I just knew it. She wasn’t even crying—she didn’t have the strength. I couldn’t face Trudie, couldn’t go back and tell her—not after David …
    “And then the other baby started to cry. The teenager’s baby. Big, hearty sobs. I looked across at her—she was so much stronger, healthier, and about the same size …”
    Sarah’s breathing quickens.
    “I didn’t think about it,” she says. “Not even for a second. There was no one else around, so I took my chance. I switched the identity bracelets and incubator tags. Just like that. Then the ambulance team arrived asking for baby Kenning. I told them there’d been a mistake about the child’s name—it was Woods, not Kenning—and they believed me—it was obvious which child was sick, and they took her away.” She swallows. “It was done. I couldn’t have undone it if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t want to—it was the right thing, I knew it was … for everyone.” She looks at me and I drop my gaze, my head reeling.
    The teenager … two babies …  switched?
    “Then Jamila’s replacement arrived, and I rushed straight back to Trudie.” Sarah smiles, her eyes watery. “You should’ve seen her face when I told her her baby was okay. She couldn’t believe it, not till she finally saw her—saw you .” She squeezes my knee, her lips trembling. “Oh, Rosie, it was love at first sight.”
    I stare at the cigarette burns polka-dotting the carpet as they spin and blur, thoughts flooding my head.
    “So I’m … That teenager was …”
    Sarah nods. “She was your biological mother, yes.”
    I swallow. “And she never knew? Mum never knew …?”
    She shakes her head. “Nobody knows. I’ve never told anyone.”
    “Not even Steve? Not Nana?”
    “No.” She sighs. “I knew if I did, if anyone so much as suspected , you could be taken away.” She closes her eyes. “I’d never have forgiven myself.”
    “And Mum … she never suspected?”
    “Never.” Sarah looks at me. “As far as she was concerned, you were her little girl, her baby.” Sarah squeezes my hand. “And you were , Rosie. She was your mum, she always will be. It doesn’t matter about—”
    “And the other girl?” I interrupt quietly, looking away. “What was her name?”
    “Rosie, I can’t really …” Sarah trails off, sighs. “Her name was Holly. Holly Woods.”
    “Holly.” I test the name on my lips. A young name. A teenager’s name. “And she—my mother—she just left me?”
    “Oh, sweetie,” Sarah says gently. “There could have been a thousand reasons why she ran away, why she’d decided to put you up for adoption. Imagine if you had a child now, at your age, it’s hardly the best—”
    “I’d keep it.”
    “Yes, well … maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she thought you’d have a better life that way.” She squeezes my hand. “The point is that Trudie did want you, more than anything in the world. You saved her that night. You saved each other.”
    I stare at the doorframe, my height marked in Mum’s loopy purple handwriting every birthday. I remember how I stood on tiptoe each year, impatient to reach the same height as her. How strange I felt when I realized I’d outgrown her.
    Suddenly a pain hits my chest so hard that I crumple. “I miss her,” I gasp. “I miss her so much.”
    “Oh, sweetie, I know!” Sarah wraps her arms around me, pulling me close. “I know. Me too.”
    “Why did she have to go? Why did she have to have stupid Huntington’s? It’s not fair!”
    “I know, darling. I know.” She kisses my hair fiercely, holding me tight. “But you don’t. You’re young and healthy and everything she wanted you to be. She was so proud of you, you know that? She loved you so much.”
    I nod, tears streaming down my cheeks.
    “And she’ll always be your mum, no matter what. Nothing can change