Imposter (eBook)

Chapter
One

one month earlier

In her years as a pediatrician, Lilian Donaldson had held thousands of babies. She’d counted their tiny fingers and toes, examined their soft fontanelles and delicate skulls. She knew how to soothe them, how to swaddle a newborn, and how to make a six-month-old giggle. After four years of medical school, three years of pediatric residency, and eight years in her own busy practice, she should have been an expert.

And yet she still felt utterly incompetent when it came to her own baby.

Four-month-old Abigail lay on the blanket in the middle of her beautiful nursery, Lilian kneeling next to her. She rechecked Abigail’s hips, grasping her baby’s knees and pressing down, then out, the Barlow and Ortolani maneuvers she must have performed ten thousand times.

Was that a clunk? If Abigail’s left hip was slipping out of her socket, it could signify congenital hip dysplasia and cause pain and dysfunction if untreated. And firstborn female babies were more likely to have hip dysplasia, a fact Lilian had often used to quiz her medical students.

Sighing, Lilian rocked back on her heels, gazing at her daughter. Abigail was beautiful, with apple-round cheeks, deep blue eyes rimmed with thick lashes, and a perfect rosebud mouth. If a baby like this had been brought into Lilian’s office, she would have told the parents that their little one looked absolutely perfect.

But as Lilian studied her baby—her own, delicious baby—she couldn’t shake a vague sense of unease. A whisper from the past, warning her to be on guard, to be watchful. Just because the baby looked fine didn’t mean she was fine.

Abigail started fussing, finding her fist and pressing it into her mouth.

“Are you hungry again?” Lilian murmured, picking Abigail up and settling into the rocking chair. The silent house felt suffocating, like a plastic bag over her face, preventing her from taking a full breath.

Unfastening her nursing bra, Lilian glanced out the window through the partially open curtains. A few snowflakes drifted in the dusky sky, and Lilian shivered. The last thing she wanted to do on a night with negative thirty– degree windchill was head outside, but she had promised Caleb she would do this, after some discussion.

“I can’t deal with my sister on top of everything else,” she had told him, to which he gently suggested it might help—as if all of Lilian’s issues would magically disappear if she just reconciled with her sister.

“You could use a night out,” he’d said, to which she responded that she didn’t need a night out, she needed a night in. She needed a night of uninterrupted sleep—impossible with a nursing baby—not an uncomfortable dinner with the sister she hadn’t spoken to in two years.

“She’s in a good place right now,” he’d said next.

Lilian had told him that he couldn’t possibly know that from a fifteen-minute conversation after a chance encounter at Starbucks.

“If you won’t do it for her, do it for me,” he’d said at last, and that’s when Lilian had finally agreed. Because she owed him this.

In Lilian’s arms, Abigail was doing the thing where she was hungry but refusing to nurse. The hungrier she got, the harder she cried, which made it even more impossible to latch. The baby’s wails, her frustrated mouth and red little face, made Lilian’s entire body stiffen with anxiety. If Abigail didn’t nurse well, then she wouldn’t sleep well. The whole schedule would be thrown off and she’d be even crankier the next morning.

Just as panic began rising inside Lilian’s head—I can’t do this anymore!—Abigail took a deep breath and latched. Then came the rhythmic tug and release on her breast, and Lilian exhaled.

Soon after, she heard the door from the garage open into the kitchen.

“I’m home!” Caleb called, his voice echoing from downstairs.

Thank God. She’d made it through another day alone. And though she wasn’t looking forward to this evening, she knew Caleb was right: it would be good to get out of the house.

Caleb bounded up the stairs and burst into the nursery, still wearing his scrubs, his hospital badge swinging, his blond hair messy. Sometimes he looked more like a boy playing at being a surgeon than a thirty-nine-year-old associate professor of Orthopedic Surgery in one of the top hospitals in the country. Lilian smiled in spite of herself.

“Sorry I’m late!” he said. “Rob needed help with the grant he’s submitting, Nina needed to talk about a patient. You know how it goes.”

Lilian did know, though her life as a busy academic physician had taken on a hazy, dreamlike quality. Her maternity leave, which had already been extended an entire month, was set to end in two weeks. She grimaced. Returning to work meant facing the mess she’d left behind.

Abigail popped off Lilian’s breast, turning her head to give her father a milky grin.

“There’s my baby girl!” Caleb said, kneeling to place his hand on Abigail’s head. “Did you hear your daddy’s voice? I missed you all day, peanut.”

“Go ahead and take her,” Lilian said, rolling her tense shoulders. “I should change my clothes, anyway.”

Caleb lifted Abigail onto his shoulder and patted her back in a practiced rhythm. He was an excellent dad, loving and gentle, and as involved as he could be, given his long hours at work. But watching them, Caleb cradling Abigail as he spoke in his sweet daddy voice, brought back that niggling sense of unease.

“I’m worried about her left hip,” Lilian said. “Will you check it?”

Caleb glanced at her. “Didn’t you just take her to see Asha? Did she notice anything?”

Dr. Asha Ramachandran was their pediatrician and Lilian’s former residency classmate. Yes, Lilian had taken Abigail for her four-month wellness check last week. And no, Asha had not noticed anything unusual. But had she checked closely enough? Really checked?

“Just try it for me,” Lilian said. Maybe his orthopedic surgeon hands would pick up something Asha hadn’t.

Caleb sent her a worried look but nodded. He laid their daughter down and took each of her squishy little knees in his big palms. Pressing downward at the hips, his forehead furrowed in concentration as he listened and palpated.

“Seems fine,” he said.

Exasperated, Lilian got out of the rocking chair. She put her hands over his and guided him through the maneuver again. “Don’t you feel that little click on the left? Just . . . there?”

“No, I don’t.” He sounded completely sure, but something still whispered at the back of her mind.

“But—”

“Lily,” he said slowly. “What’s going on?”

Lilian stiffened. Of all people, Caleb should understand why she would be worried about missing a diagnosis, about ignoring signs of something potentially devastating. He should understand why she couldn’t trust herself.

But he didn’t have to live with her mistake. Not the way she did. Lilian kept the memory tight against her chest like armor, feeling the weight, the girth, those sharp edges each time she took a breath. It kept her honest. It kept her on her toes.

“I’m not being paranoid, if that’s what you mean,” she said in a tight voice. “I know I’m just a lowly pediatrician, but please don’t patronize me.”

The worry on his face blossomed into hurt. “If you’re worried, let’s get an X-ray. Then we’ll know for sure.”

“And expose her to unnecessary radiation?” Lilian imagined the invisible rays penetrating Abigail’s tiny body, snipping and splicing her DNA, making changes that, decades later, could cause cancer. Not likely with one X-ray, but why take the risk? “I’ll keep monitoring it.”

Caleb picked Abigail up again, kissing each of her cheeks. “We are going to have the best time tonight, aren’t we, Abby girl? Mommy’s going out with Aunt Rosie, and we’ll watch the game together.”

Aunt Rosie. A confusing title, given that Rosie had never even met Abigail. But it vibrated deep in Lilian’s chest—a longing she hadn’t realized existed.

“There’s a bottle of breast milk in the fridge,” Lilian said. “I don’t think I’ll be gone that long, though.”

“Take as long as you need,” Caleb said, glancing over at her. His smile couldn’t hide the concern in his eyes. “I’m proud of you for doing this. I know Rosie doesn’t deserve it—”

“It’s fine.” Lilian didn’t want to rehash what had happened between her and her sister. She had agreed to one dinner with Rosie. That was it. It...