I was left alone at home with a newborn, while my husband disappeared at night — at the abandoned house his face lost its color

That night, when my husband looked at our newborn daughter and ran out of the house, I thought for the first time that something terrible threatened my child.

Only six days had passed since Lily’s birth. I could still barely get out of bed, my stitches hurt, my breast milk was pooling, and I woke at every sound, but Ryan had already been quietly leaving the house after midnight for the third night.

That evening, only the white sheet of the baby’s crib was moving in the room. Raindrops struck the windowpane as if someone outside was asking to come in. A small copper moon was sewn onto the edge of Lily’s blanket. A nurse had attached it at the maternity hospital so they could easily distinguish her from the other infants. Since then, this little object had become Lily’s first sign for me.

Ryan was standing by the door, putting on his shoes.

“Where are you going again?” I asked.

He did not raise his head.

“I’m going out for a little while.”

“At two in the morning?”

“Elene, not now.”

“When will it be ‘now’? When you disappear all night? When Lily smiles for the first time and you are not there?”

At last he looked at me. There was such exhaustion in his eyes that my anger disappeared for a moment. But his fingers did not stop trembling.

“I’m doing this for you,” he said.

“What are you doing for me?”

Instead of answering, he opened the door.

Something broke inside me at that moment. Not noisily, but inside. I picked up Lily, put a diaper and a small blanket in the baby bag, and then followed Ryan.

The rain soaked me immediately. My thin shoes filled with water, while the lower part of my abdomen tightened from pain. Ryan got into the car and drove off without even looking back.

I followed his trail for almost an hour.

The city lights slowly disappeared. The road entered between the forests. At last Ryan stopped at an abandoned, half-ruined house. Water was running down from the roof of the house, and in the yard a rusty swing was slowly being carried back and forth by the wind.

Ryan got out of the car.

“Ryan!” I shouted.

He stopped.

“Why did you come here?”

“You asked me where I go? This is where I go.”

“Alone?”

He looked toward the house.

“No.”

The door opened by itself. It was dark inside, but I could hear someone breathing.

“Who is there?” I asked, grabbing his arm.

Ryan made me let go of his arm.

“You should not have come.”

“This is my child too!”

Pain passed over his face.

“That is exactly why you should not have come.”

Something heavy fell inside the house. I looked at Lily. She was sleeping, with a small fist pressed against her cheek, while the copper moon on the edge of her blanket glimmered faintly in the light of the rain.

“Ryan, tell me the truth. Now.”

He closed his eyes, as if the words he had to say were physically pressing against his throat.

“Elene… on the day Lily was born, I saw something.”

“What?”

He turned toward the door. Someone inside let out a quiet sigh.

“When I first looked at her, I realized that this child…”

At that moment Ryan reached toward an old locked cabinet and inserted a key into the lock…

Ryan’s fingers could barely turn the key stuck in the lock. The cabinet door opened with a creak, and neatly arranged folders appeared inside. The papers smelled of dampness, and the edges of several photographs had curled from water.

“What is this?” I asked.

Ryan did not answer me.

In the abandoned house, at three in the morning, my husband stood with a face as if he were tied before his own past. An old kerosene lamp stood in the corner of the room. In its flickering light I saw a child’s drawing on the wall: four figures, a yellow sun, and a little girl with a moon drawn on her chest.

“Who lives here?” I asked.

A woman’s voice sounded from the other room.

“Ryan, did she come?”

My body froze.

Ryan lowered his eyes.

“Mother, please, don’t come out.”

“She has the right to know,” the woman answered.

I adjusted Lily in my arms. Her warm smell and small heartbeat together were the only things still connecting me to reality.

“Your mother is here?” I asked.

“I thought she had died eight years ago.”

“What does ‘thought’ mean?”

The woman appeared in the doorway. She was thin, her hair had turned completely white, and an old medical bracelet was on her left wrist. She looked at Lily and covered her lips with her hand.

“This face…” she whispered.

“Mother, be quiet.”

“The girl is alive,” the woman said. “The child who was taken that night is alive.”

I looked at Ryan.

“Who was taken?”

Ryan brought a chair closer.

“My sister Nora worked at the hospital. Eight years ago a newborn disappeared there. Officially, they said the baby had died. But Nora knew that was a lie.”

“And now you are telling me that my child resembles that missing baby?”

“No,” he said, and his voice broke. “I am saying that at Lily’s birth I saw the same sign.”

He pointed toward my daughter’s blanket.

Toward the copper moon.

“They gave us this object at the maternity hospital,” I said.

“No. Such moons were sewn into the blanket of the child who disappeared eight years ago. Nora kept one. That is exactly why I ran away that night when I saw Lily.”

“Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”

Ryan’s eyes lit up.

“Because I knew whom I was standing against. The director of that hospital is now the city’s most influential doctor. If I was wrong, I would destroy our family. If I was right, they would take Lily away from us.”

“You have already taken the truth away from me.”

The woman slowly stepped into the room.

“Ryan found the records,” she said. “The records of the child’s birth day. But the main evidence is still there.”

“Where?”

Ryan looked at the old clock hanging on the wall. The clock had stopped at twelve minutes past four.

“In the morning we must go to the clinic. Lily’s blood sample is there. And another sample that was kept eight years ago.”

“Whose?”

He did not manage to answer. The telephone rang.

The call was from an unknown number.

Ryan answered.

“Ryan Haley speaking.”

Silence fell from the other side for several seconds.

Then a calm man’s voice said:

“If you want your wife and child to be alive in the morning, do not go to the clinic alone.”

The connection broke.

Ryan slowly lowered the phone, and for the first time I saw all color disappear from his face.

But the most terrible thing was that after the call ended, his mother went to the wall, removed a brick, and took out a small wooden box…

She placed the wooden box on the table. The lid had a lock in the shape of a small copper moon. The same moon that was sewn onto Lily’s blanket.

“Nora left this,” Ryan’s mother said. “Before her death.”

Ryan put his hand on the box, but immediately pulled it back.

“If we open this, there will be no way back.”

“We lost the way back at the moment you hid the truth from me about my child,” I said.

Only the sound of rain could be heard in the room. Ryan opened the lock.

Inside were a folded piece of blanket, two old photographs, and a sealed medical document. The hospital stamp was clearly visible on the document. Below it was written: “Newborn girl, time of birth — twelve minutes past four.”

My breath caught.

“Lily was born at twelve minutes past four,” I said.

“Exactly,” Ryan answered.

The photograph showed a small girl photographed eight years earlier. She too had a copper moon attached to her chest. Beside it was written a name: Anna.

“Is this the missing child?” I asked.

Ryan’s mother nodded.

“Nora’s child.”

I looked at Ryan.

“Your sister’s child?”

“Yes. Nora was my twin. She knew that babies were being switched in the hospital. Before she could bring out the truth, Nora died in a car accident.”

“And you thought Lily was Anna?”

“I didn’t know. I only had a suspicion. That is why I took Lily’s blood sample and Nora’s old sample, which Mother had kept. We received the result this morning.”

“Where is the result?”

Ryan took a white sheet of paper from the folder. He held the paper as if he were holding fire in his hand.

“Lily is Nora’s biological child. The girl who was declared missing eight years ago is my sister’s child. Lily was given to us at the maternity hospital under another child’s name.”

My knees lost their strength.

“So I… spent eight years searching for the child who grew inside my womb?”

“You are her mother,” Ryan said quickly. “Blood cannot change that.”

“But why did you hide it from me?”

“Because the hospital director threatened me. He said that if I spoke up, he would take the child away from us and say against you that you were mentally unstable after giving birth.”

The woman’s face turned white.

“His name is Doctor Victor Morgan,” she said. “He is exactly the man who knows where the second record is kept.”

At that moment a strong knock sounded on the door.

Ryan turned off the lamp.

“Who is it?” I shouted.

Instead of an answer, a white envelope slid under the door.

Ryan picked it up and opened it. Inside there was only one sheet: “If you come to the clinic in the morning, you will learn to whom the second child truly belongs.”

Our home address was written at the bottom of the sheet.

And then the telephone rang again.

This time my own number appeared on the screen…