“Come. I’ll show you what it looks like from the inside.”
The nurse led Angie through the ER reception area and down a sterile-smelling corridor lined with empty beds on wheels. They came to a set of square double doors in the wall, also at waist height. Four plastic chairs lined the wall beside the doors. Jenny stopped and faced Angie. Under the harsh fluorescent lighting, the nurse regarded Angie in silence. Angie weighed Jenny in return. The woman’s hair was thick and cut into a blunt bob above her shoulders. In this light Angie could see that the nurse’s skin was fine and papery. Deep lines fanned out from wide-set warm brown eyes and bracketed her mouth. The wrinkles seemed to map years of empathy and sadness. They were the lines, Angie thought, of a person who’d cared too much for far too long. Angie had once been told that empathy did not make for an easy nursing career. It was the more self-centered nurses—the ones who could easily objectify and distance themselves from their patients’ pain—who fared best. It was the same with cops, in her opinion. The truly compassionate officers didn’t last—or live—quite as long. It was a survival thing—the ability to cut off that part of oneself.
“What did you say your friend’s name was again?” Jenny Marsden asked quietly.
“I didn’t.” Angie forced a smile. “She prefers to remain anonymous at this point.”
The nurse considered Angie’s reply, oblivious to two paramedics suddenly rushing a gurney past them. “I understand,” she said finally, quietly. Her eyes shimmered with moisture. She turned away quickly and opened the doors set into the wall. “This is the interior entrance to the bassinet.”
Angie came forward and peered in.
The compartment was painted a deep eggplant. It ran from waist to ceiling height. A door in the rear wall led to the outdoors. A clear plastic bassinet was positioned at the base. The bassinet was about four by three feet in size—large enough to accommodate a three-or four-year-old. Like Angie had been when she’d been abandoned. The mattress in the bassinet was covered in a soft-looking white flannel fabric. In the corner sat a yellow teddy bear dressed in a red sweater printed with the words SAINT PETER’S HOSPITAL.
The teddy’s beady eyes regarded her intently. A shrill ringing began in Angie’s brain as she stared into the shiny eyes. The air grew hot. Pressure increased inside her skull. She struggled to draw in a breath, to gather the onslaught of emotions swirling like an unchecked tsunami inside her chest.
Jenny leaned over the bassinet and opened the door on the far side. Cold wet air blew in. Through the opening Angie could see the lights and traffic of Front Street, a Starbucks logo in the window across the sidewalk. She felt as though she’d slid through some alternate reality, some hole in time.
“The cradle back in ’86 was not much different from this one,” Jenny said quietly. “It affected us all, you know, finding that bleeding and mute toddler inside. She was a beautiful child—that pale complexion, the long dark-red hair, and that tattered little pink dress with frayed lace.” A pause. “We all thought someone would come forward to claim her instantly—that she had to have some family who was missing her. But no one did—not a soul. No mother presented at Saint Peter’s with injuries later. The other hospitals in this health-care region reported nothing suspicious, either. It was a mystery. An absolute mystery.”
“Tell . . . tell me more about the child,” Angie said, her voice husky.
“Her mouth had been slashed open by a sharp weapon—it had sliced through both the upper and lower lips on the left side of her face. She was bleeding copiously from the wound. Blood saturated her dress, the bassinet. She was clutching the teddy we’d placed inside, like a lifeline. Blood soaked the teddy bear as well. She was in shock, gray eyes like saucers. And she made no sound at all. As though she was beyond crying and had perhaps been that way for a long time before.” Jenny fell silent.
Angie looked down at her.
“Eyes the same color as yours,” Jenny said almost inaudibly. Her gaze ticked to the scar that marred the left side of Angie’s mouth. “Hair the same deep-red shade as yours—like Brazilian cherrywood, I always thought.”
Angie’s cheeks went hot. “The news feature that I read online didn’t give much else beyond those same details.”
“Yes—the police asked us to keep silent about the other information. They said it would aid them in their investigation. We took their request very seriously. Like I said, finding that toddler in the baby box . . . It impacted us all deeply. We all wanted answers, and if not talking to the media was going to help get them, we wanted to do everything we could.”
Tears pricked suddenly at Angie’s eyes. It scared her—this lack of emotional control. But hearing that there’d been people who’d cared all those years ago, who’d wanted the same answers she now sought, who’d done everything to help her . . . it connected her to this place. And to this nurse with whom she shared a piece of the past. It gave her a small sense of belonging, of grounding—something she’d begun to crave desperately since her father had dropped the bombshell of her past on her.
“Holdback evidence,” Angie offered. “That’s why police asked for silence. But you can talk now. Whatever evidence did come into the cradle with the child in ’86 has since been destroyed. I visited the VPD this morning, and they confirmed this. There are no case files, no evidence, nothing. Their old collection and maintenance procedures have since changed dramatically—as is the case with many law enforcement agencies worldwide that used to routinely destroy evidence in storage after a set period of time. The lead detectives who handled the cradle case are now deceased. I’m meeting with the widow of one tomorrow, but I doubt she’ll be able to tell me anything.”
Jenny nodded and worried her bottom lip with her teeth.