The Baby Thief by Don Canaan & Shawn Graves

Author:Don Canaan & Shawn Graves
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: woman sleuth, woman detective, illegal adoption, OB/Gyn, pregnant teenagers, incest, baby broker
Publisher: Don Canaan
Published: 2017-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

September 1941

The baby's fussing woke Ellen and she was out of bed before he could work himself into full-fledged crying. She did not want him to wake the others in the house. Smiling, she murmured comfortingly to him as she changed his diaper. After wrapping him securely in a blanket, she scooped him up and held him against her shoulder, patting him as she walked downstairs to the kitchen where she took a milk bottle from the icebox and set it on the stove in a pan of water. Grinning, she congratulated herself on how expert she had become at doing things with one hand while holding the child in the other. He had only been home for three weeks, but she couldn't remember how it was without him.

He was small for his age, having been born prematurely. However, he was doing so well Ellen was confident he would catch up and by the time he was old enough to start school, no one would know he had been a preemie. She carried the baby and the warm bottle of milk back up to her room and settled in the rocking chair to feed him. First, she held him close and nuzzled his neck, inhaling his sweet baby scent. He was hungry, though, and not as interested in her adoration as he was in food and he began to fuss vigorously.

“All right, all right,” she whispered. “Here’s your bottle, you greedy little man.”

In the end, it had all been so easy. She did not know why she hadn’t thought of it from the beginning. She called the hospital with the “family emergency” she had already planned to use. She took a few weeks of leave and then returned to work. Three weeks ago, she brought the baby home, not saying anything to Mrs. Appleton beforehand. The fussy landlady was outraged at first, having a very strict policy against children in her boarding house. But Ellen told her that her cousin... a young widow... had died in childbirth, and being so close while growing up, before she died the cousin had begged Ellen to raise her baby.

Mrs. Appleton, who had never had children of her own, was soon won over by the tragic story and the sweet-natured baby boy. She not only allowed Ellen to stay with the baby, but she offered to babysit while Ellen worked. Ellen was exhausted and she hated being away from him, sometimes for 48 hours, but she held onto the thought that her residency was almost over. She would be able to get her medical license and take one of the job offers that were coming in.

Knowing that her family would eventually hear that she suddenly had a baby, Ellen had sent them a long letter, telling a slightly different version of the story she told Mrs. Appleton. She told them the baby’s mother was poor and unable to care for him, and had begged Ellen to raise him. She assured her parents that she knew what she was doing and that they would fall in love with the baby just as she had.

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