4: UNRAVELING

Layla's POV 

The apartment felt wrong.

I stood in the doorway with my hospital bag at my feet and stared at the space I'd left four days ago, at the bassinet in the corner and the tiny clothes folded on the dresser and the changing table I'd set up with such careful hope.

Everything was still here.

Everything except her.

Claudia moved past me into the apartment, set her purse on the counter and turned with that same bright false smile.

"Why don't you go lie down and I'll make us some tea," she said.

"I don't want tea," I said while still staring at the bassinet, at the empty space where my daughter should have been. "I want answers."

"Layla," Claudia's voice had that warning edge. "You need to stop this, you need to rest and heal and let yourself grieve properly."

"How can I grieve properly when nothing makes sense?" I moved further into the apartment, each step feeling heavy and wrong. "When no one will tell me where she is or show me any proof of what happened?"

"The hospital is handling everything," Claudia said for what felt like the hundredth time. "You need to trust the process."

But I didn't trust the process.

I didn't trust anything anymore.

Claudia stayed for another hour, hovering and checking on me like I might break, making tea I didn't drink and suggesting I take the medication Dr Mitchell had prescribed.

"It will help," she said while holding out the bottle.

"I don't want it," I said and wrapped my arms around myself because my breasts were starting to ache, starting to feel heavy and full in a way that made me want to scream.

My body didn't know my baby was dead.

My body was still preparing to feed her, still doing all the things it was supposed to do for a child that would never need them.

When Claudia finally left I stood at the window and watched her car pull away, watched until she turned the corner and disappeared, then I grabbed my phone with shaking hands.

The hospital's main number rang four times before someone answered with that same practiced cheerful voice.

"Memorial Hospital, how may I direct your call?"

"I need to speak to someone about my daughter," I said and tried to keep my voice steady. "I gave birth four days ago and I was told she died but I haven't received any paperwork or information about what happens next."

"I'm sorry for your loss," the voice said, already sounding distracted. "Let me transfer you to patient records."

Hold music played and I paced across my small living room, past the bassinet and the changing table, past all the things I'd bought and prepared.

"Patient records," a new voice said.

I explained again, gave my name and my daughter's birth date and asked for copies of all the paperwork related to her death.

"Let me pull up your file," typing sounds came through the phone. "Walsh, Layla, admitted on... yes I see the admission record but I'm not seeing any related pediatric files."

My chest got tight.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means we don't have records of a deceased infant under your name," the voice said slowly. "Are you sure you were told the baby died at this facility?"

"Yes," I said and my voice was rising. "I gave birth there, they told me she died, where else would I have been told?"

"Ma'am I'm just telling you what's in our system," the voice got defensive. "If you'd like to speak to someone in administration—"

"Yes," I said quickly. "Yes, please transfer me."

More hold music.

More pacing.

Another voice, older this time, tired.

I explained everything again and this time mentioned Dr Mitchell and the nurses and the doctor who'd first told me my daughter didn't survive.

"I'm sorry but I'm not finding complete records for this case," the administrator said. "Sometimes there are delays in filing when... when these situations occur."

"How long do delays usually take?" I asked.

"It varies," she said. "But I can make a note in the system that you're requesting copies of all documentation and someone will follow up with you."

"When?"

"Within five to seven business days."

"That's too long," I said and pressed my hand against my aching chest. "I need answers now, I need to know what happened to my baby."

"I understand your frustration Ms Walsh but these processes take time," she said and I could hear her already preparing to end the call. "Someone will be in touch."

The line went dead and I stood there holding the phone, staring at the screen and trying to understand how there could be no records, how my daughter could have died and left no trace.

I called back and asked for the maternity ward.

Asked specifically for the nurse who'd been in my room that morning, the one with the kind tired eyes who'd told me to rest.

"I'm sorry but we don't have a nurse by that name on our maternity staff," the woman who answered said.

"Are you sure?" I tried to remember more details, tried to pull faces and names from the fog in my memory. "She was older, maybe in her fifties, brown hair—"

"We have several nurses matching that description but none with the name you're giving me," the voice said. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

I hung up and sank onto the couch, my phone still gripped in my hand while my mind raced through everything that had happened.

No records.

No death certificate.

Nurses who didn't exist.

Files that were incomplete or missing.

I grabbed a notebook from the drawer and started writing, started putting everything down on paper so I could see it all at once, so I could make sense of what was happening.

Timeline first.

Labor started at two AM.

Arrived at hospital at three.

Gave birth at... I stopped and tried to remember what time it had been but the drugs had made everything fuzzy, had blurred the hours together.

Morning, it had been morning, early morning when I'd heard her cry.

I wrote down everything I could remember, every name and face and conversation, every moment that had felt wrong.

The doctor who wouldn't meet my eyes.

Claudia saying I'd been told things I didn't remember.

The whispered hallway conversation.

Dr Mitchell and the forced medication.

Waking up packed and ready to be discharged.

I read through it all and tried to find the pattern, tried to see what I was missing.

My phone rang and I grabbed it hoping it was the hospital calling back with answers.

Claudia's name flashed on the screen.

"Are you okay?" she asked when I answered. "I've been worried about you."

"I called the hospital," I said.

Silence on the other end, just for a second too long.

"Why would you do that?" Claudia asked and something in her voice had changed, had gotten tighter.

"Because I want answers," I said while staring at my notes. "And they're telling me they don't have records of what happened, that nurses I remember don't work there."

"Layla," Claudia's voice softened but it sounded forced now, sounded like she was reading from a script. "You were on a lot of medication, you were traumatized, your memory isn't reliable right now."

"Then why can't anyone show me proof?" I asked. "Why is everything missing or incomplete or wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong," she said firmly. "You're just confused and in pain and that's making you see things that aren't there."

I looked down at my notebook, at all the questions I'd written.

What if she was right?

What if the drugs and the trauma had warped everything, had made me imagine inconsistencies that didn't exist?

"I don't know what's real anymore," I whispered.

"That's why you need to rest," Claudia said. "That's why you need to take the medication Dr Mitchell prescribed and let yourself heal instead of torturing yourself with questions that don't have answers."

"They do have answers," I said but even as I said it I felt doubt creeping in. "Someone knows what happened."

"What happened is your baby died," Claudia said and her voice was gentle but there was steel underneath it. "And I know that's unbearable but calling the hospital and harassing staff isn't going to change it, it's only going to make things harder for you."

My breasts ached and my head ached and everything in my body knew my daughter should be here but what if my mind was playing tricks on me, what if grief had broken something inside me that couldn't be fixed.

"I heard her cry," I said one more time but my voice came out weak, uncertain.

"Trauma does strange things to memory," Claudia said. "You need to trust the doctors, trust me, trust that everyone is trying to help you through this."

We hung up and I sat on the couch with my notebook in my lap, staring at all my notes and questions while doubt wrapped around me like fog.

What if I really was imagining things?

What if the inconsistencies I saw were just my broken brain trying to make sense of unbearable loss?

What if my daughter really had died and I was torturing myself for nothing?

I closed the notebook and pressed my hands against my face while tears leaked through my fingers.

Maybe I really am imagining things.