Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“This baby I’m holding right now has a birthmark on his neck,” I heard another say. “Oh, God. How did I not know?”
I whipped around, not expecting to find a parent there holding a child that was mine.
I knew that baby was mine based solely on the fact that I could see the birthmark from here.
“He’s mine,” I said.
He walked over to me and placed the baby in my arms.
That’s about the time the male nurse chose to take off.
“Oh, fuckin’ no you aren’t.” I heard an outraged woman’s voice.
I turned just in time to see a woman wearing a hospital gown heading down the hall as fast as her nonslip socks could take her.
She was on the man in about half a second flat, and before the male nurse could brace or prepare for impact, the mom was tackling him as if he was a running back going for the winning touchdown.
“My wife is an Olympic sprinter,” the man who’d just given me my baby said. “I thought he looked a little too white, too. But I wasn’t here for the birth. I was in Columbia for a photo shoot.”
I looked down at my son, then looked toward the one that they’d tried to pass off as my son.
The one in the bassinet definitely had more of an olive-toned complexion, denoting him of mixed race.
“He’s cute,” I said, “but yeah, definitely looks more yours than mine.”
Seeing as both Danyetta and I were both pale in complexion, with barely any melanin in our skin whatsoever.
That’s when Danyetta walked into the hallway, looking around warily.
She saw the male nurse on the floor that’d been tackled, then saw the woman sitting on him.
Danyetta’s eyes met mine, and she raised her brows as if I had the answers.
I did, and that felt good that she believed in me.
She walked over with a frown and said, “What the heck happened?”
That’s when I saw her lose control.
• • •
The only problem was, there was no way to tell which kids he’d switched.
I mean, obviously, we’d been able to figure out the two that’d been switched in that moment in time.
However, he’d been working at that place for years, and the only way was for DNA tests to be taken of every single baby that’d been through the doors when he’d been at work.
It’d taken them eighteen long months to figure out that not only had he switched my son with another lady’s on the unit, but he’d also switched thirty-two other children. Thirty. Two.
And his reasoning for doing it when he had his day in court? He’d thought it would be funny.
Funny.
He’d thought it would be fucking funny.
Those words, coming out of his mouth, had been the last thing I could take.
Without thought, I’d hopped over that fuckin’ excuse of a divider between him and me, and I’d taken him down to the floor. Funny enough, it’d been one of the other parents that had their children switched—something in which they’d found out two years after the deed—that had blocked everyone from reaching me and stopping me from beating the absolute shit out of the ex-nurse.
When I was finally pulled off, he’d been beaten within an inch of his life.
He would’ve been completely dead had I had thirty more seconds.
In that time, though, another nurse that I hadn’t realized had been involved in the “switching” as we liked to call it, had tried to sneak out of the fray and disappear, only to be knocked down in the scuffle. In that fall, she’d hit her head on the way down.
In a freak accident that would be harder than fuck to ever re-create, she’d fallen just perfectly and broken her neck. Killing her instantly.
The sad fact after that was, while I’d gotten eight to ten years for my assault and one count of murder for the stupid piece of shit, the still-living nurse had gotten six.
In total, he’d changed the life of thirty-two children and their families. Meanwhile, I’d done the whole damn world a favor by beating the hell out of him. And we’d both practically gotten the same sentence, since I’d been released six years early.
Sadly, since the appeal process had taken so long to process, I’d gotten Bowie for way too short a time period before I’d had to start serving my time in prison.
Even getting out early hadn’t saved our relationship.
It’d also given Danyetta and I the push to realize that we just weren’t meant for each other.
In the years leading up to the day I’d had to go to jail, Danyetta and I had come to be more like roommates than lovers. We’d realized rather quickly that, although we made damn fine children together, we didn’t make good spouses. We started spending more time apart.
She wanted everything that I didn’t, and in the end, we’d chosen to actually separate, and finally divorce, after I’d spent a year in prison.