Chapter 4 - THE SECOND MOTHER
The other mother involved in the 2017 incident was Melissa Grant.
She had delivered a daughter thirty-seven minutes after Claire.
Same floor.
Same overnight shift.
Same nursery observation period.
The hospital could not simply give Ryan and Claire her address, but risk management contacted her independently.
Melissa agreed to a video call.
She was now thirty-seven and living in Indiana.
Her daughter’s name was Ava.
Nine years old.
Claire stared at the framed photographs behind Melissa.
A dark-haired girl in soccer clothes.
Melissa listened to the Carter DNA results without interrupting.
Then she said:
“The hospital told me there was a labeling problem too.”
Claire leaned forward.
“You knew?”
“They told me it was resolved.”
Melissa’s mother, Evelyn, had been present at the hospital and remained suspicious.
She noticed a changed feeding label on the bassinet after the nursery trip.
She complained.
Staff reassured her.
Melissa still had a photocopy of one handwritten note:
BABY CARTER / BABY GRANT — VERIFY BAND SET BEFORE RETURN.
Then Melissa disclosed something stranger.
At age three, Ava had a blood-type test before surgery.
Melissa was type O.
Ava’s father, Brian, was also type O.
Ava was type A.
Under ordinary inheritance, that did not fit.
Melissa assumed the hospital test was wrong.
Brian later died.
They never pursued it.
Claire asked:
“Would you let Ava be tested?”
Melissa nodded.
“Yes.”
Then she said:
“If Ava is biologically yours, she is still my daughter.”
Claire started crying.
“Yes.”
“And if Emily is biologically mine, I’m not coming to take her.”
That was when Claire understood the truth would not be about ownership.
It would be about how two families lived after discovering a mistake nobody could reverse.
Before the call ended, Melissa held up another letter.
A hospital follow-up notice mailed when the girls were six months old.
Claire stared.
“We never got one.”
May you like
Melissa looked at the document.
“According to this, you did.”
