Switched at Birth: The True Story of a Mother's Journey Read Online Free PDF Page A

considerable legal influence at the hospital on our behalf. What we needed at the moment was an attorney who was nothing short of a legal WMD, and Harrison Burke was definitely that. For one solid month, from behind his gleaming antique desk in his mahogany-paneled office, this soldier of the law earned his astronomical retainer by calling the hospital daily to issue demands and ultimatums. When that failed to produce results, he would drop by in person with promises of hellfire if the search for our child was not handled expeditiously and with every resource the hospital had at its disposal.
    And what did John and I do?
    We spent a small fortune on legal fees.
    And we waited.
    There are things about those weeks that I really don’t remember. I think it must have been some involuntary coping mechanism kicking in, because there are entire days of which I have no recollection whatsoever. I know I drove Bay to school. I’m certain I prepared meals. I got the mail and made the coffee. I ate (although not a lot and with very little enjoyment). I breathed. I prayed.
    Other things, I was less diligent about: my cuticles; the geraniums in the planter boxes on the patio; answering the phone (unless Caller ID told me it was our secret weapon of an attorney checking in). I skipped PTA meetings. I forgot about lipstick entirely.
    I also spent a lot of time alone in the master suite with the door shut, flipping through the bulky photo albums I’d compiled during my brief but zealous “scrapbooking” phase. I would stare at snapshots (remember: my kids were born in an era when pictures existed on film rather than in cyberspace) of Bay as a baby, a toddler, a toothless first-grader, a fourth-grade Halloween princess. I’d run my fingers over them, as if to prove that they were real, that the memories captured there on those shiny, four- by six-inch rectangles had actually occurred.
    When Bay was at school, I’d go into her room, telling myself I was there to dust the furniture or Windex the mirrors. I happen to be one of a very few women in my particular demographic who opt to clean their own houses. I’m sure there are a zillion psychological explanations that could be offered as to why I choose to vacuum my own carpets and scrub my own toilets, but the real reason is simply this: Nobody, and I mean nobody , would ever clean my house as well as I clean it myself.
    Well, maybe my mother. But that’s another chapter.
    The point is, I learned about housekeeping at the hands of the master, Bonnie Tamblyn Dixon, and no cleaning lady or maintenance staff I might hire could ever meet my expectations when it comes to scouring the kitchen sink or keeping the vegetable bin free of mold. So, yes, I clean my own house.
    But in the course of those six weeks, as I waited to hear something, anything , regarding the whereabouts of my biological daughter, I will admit that I did very little cleaning at all. When I wandered into Bay’s room, as I said, it was ostensibly to pair up her school socks (Bonnie folds, I roll) or collect the empty glasses from the nightstand, but what I really did was sink into the soft comforter on her bed and just look around.
    I’d see the random snatches of artwork-in-progress on a page of an open sketchbook; I would marvel at the way she’d arranged her perfume bottles on the dresser (she’s a big fan of the Ed Hardy fragrances). I’d pull her pillow to my face and just breathe in the scent of her shampoo and makeup remover lingering there, as if I could breathe Bay herself into my lungs.
    What would my life have been like if she hadn’t been here?
    It was a sickening thought, and I felt tears welling in my eyes every time it forced itself into my mind, but still, I couldn’t help but wonder. Without my Bay—not the one I conceived, but the one I re ceived—who would I be?
    Her quirks, her fears, her talents, her sense of humor, her Bay-ness had contributed to my maternal evolution and informed my sense of