Switched at Birth by Kathryn Kennish

Author:Kathryn Kennish [Kennish, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9781401312756
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 2012-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

How Tandoori Chicken Can Change Your Life

I know there is no way I will escape this memoir without at least touching on that abstract concept known as Fate. Whether you call it karma, kismet, fortune, destiny, serendipity, good old-fashioned dumb luck, or all of the above, surely you must be wondering where, in light of my circumstance, I stand on this issue. As I am not a philosopher or a Zen master or a theologian, I will have to explain it to you in the rudimentary terms by which I myself have come to understand it. If it seems oversimplified, that’s because it is.

Six days prior to the due date of my second child, I found myself craving Indian food in the absolute worst way. Visions of Vindaloo danced in my head as I called John at work and instructed him to bring home as much curry-flavored take-out food as he could fit in the cargo hold of the Range Rover he was driving at the time.

“Isn’t Indian food a little spicy?” he asked cautiously. (I’d entered that phase of my pregnancy when even the slightest hint of provocation could send me into a hormone-driven meltdown.)

“It’s very spicy, actually.”

“Well, you’re due in six days.”

“What’s your point?”

Needless to say, John picked up the Indian food and I devoured every last morsel like the extremely pregnant woman I was.

Which was why I developed one hell of a case of heartburn.

Which was why I couldn’t fall asleep.

Which was why, at two o’clock in the morning, I decided the upper shelf of the walk-in cedar closet needed to be completely reorganized, and since in a mere six days I would be the mother of two (count ’em, two!) children under the age of twenty-four months, I’d better get a move on and do it now while I had the chance.

Which was why I was stupidly attempting to lift a thirty-gallon plastic storage bin filled with woolen blankets and flannel sheets in the middle of the night.

Which was why I went into labor six days earlier than I was scheduled to and wound up giving birth to my daughter on a day when the nurses in the maternity ward were being forced to work quadruple shifts.

Which is why in a state of utter exhaustion, one of them unintentionally gave me the wrong child.

Call it fate. Call it chance. Call it whatever you want. But that’s how it happened. Life is just one big cosmic flowchart. I can’t explain it any better than that. And I’m sure Regina can give me a similar breakdown of the events leading to the illness that resulted in Daphne losing her ability to hear. But what it all boils down to is this—whether you kill a ladybug in Tokyo and it causes a bridge to collapse in Belgium, or you crave Indian food in Mission Hills and it results in a hospital staffer putting the wrong ID anklet on your newborn baby, there are forces at work in the universe over which we mere mortals have no control.

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