Free Someone Else's Life by Katie Dale Page A

where it all happened. Thank God Sarah’s got this week off, so there’s no chance of bumping into her.
    “Can I help you?” A cheerful-looking nurse approaches us.
    I force a bright smile and clear my throat. “Hello, we’re students at Maybridge Sixth Form College, and we’re doing a project on the day we were born.” My tone is professional, polite, as I recite the rehearsed lines we devised in the car.
    “I see.” She smiles. “How can I help you?”
    “Well, I was born here,” I say confidently. “And I was just wondering if you could tell me how many …” My eyes flick to her name-badge. Jamila Price . “How many …” Jamila … “How …”
    She raises her eyebrows.
    “How many other babies were born on the same days we were,” Andy finishes for me. “And any information you can give us about them.”
    “I’m sorry.” Jamila smiles apologetically. “We can’t give out that information. Patient confidentiality, you know.”
    “Of course,” Andy says. “Thanks anyway.”
    “What about you?” I ask desperately as she turns away. “Maybe I could just ask you some questions. Have you ever had to deal with mothers running away—abandoning their child?”
    She stares at me. “I’m sorry—I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
    “Come on, Rose,” Andy says quickly. “Let’s go.”
    “But—what about teenagers with unwanted babies? Adoption?”
    “I’m sorry.” She turns away.
    “Come on.” Andy grabs my arm and pulls me back through the door.
    “Crap.” I kick the snow gloomily as we walk back to the car. “Utter crap. Fat lot of use that was.”
    “Well, I don’t know what you expected, to be honest, Rose. They’re hardly going to say, ‘Oh yes, I remember that mother, here’s her name, address and telephone number,’ are they?”
    “ She might have.” I round on him. “ She might have, because she’s the one who told Sarah about me!”
    He stops walking.
    “She was there , Andy—she met Holly. She might remember her, might be able to tell me—”
    I turn back but he grabs my arm.
    “She’s not going to tell you anything, Rosie—there are laws, you know?”
    “I know,” I admit sulkily. “But—”
    “And Sarah broke the law, Rose,” Andy continues, his voice a whisper. “She’ll get into a lot of trouble if anyone finds out—you have to be really careful about this.”
    “I am being careful.” I hug the clipboard tightly. “But Andy, how else am I going to find my real mother?”
    He sighs. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”
    I look at him.
    “Think about it, Rosie. She was seventeen. Seventeen and pregnant and alone. She was going to give you up for adoption, she ran away, she probably even gave a fake name—there were no seventeen-year-old Holly Woodses, remember?”
    I sigh heavily, digging my toe into the loose gravel. Andy’s right, the trail’s gone cold. It’s nearly eighteen years cold. All I have is a name, and if that’s fake … then I have nothing. My mother walked out of that hospital and just disappeared into thin air, leaving me behind—the only proof she ever existed.
    She doesn’t even have a birth record.
    I dig my foot deeper into the stones, losing my toes in the dirt and grit.
    No sign of her, even five years either side.
    I rewind my conversation with Sarah miserably in my head. She was seventeen , she was here — the girl’s name was Holly Woods …
    Suddenly my heart begins to race.
    The girl …
    I march back to the car. “We need to check the records again.”
    “What? Rosie, wait—”
    “The birth records,” I tell him, sprinting now. “We got the wrong year!”
    “Rosie, we checked,” Andy argues. “Five years either side—there was no Holly Woods born at the right time to be your mother!”
    “No.” I grin, my cheeks warm in the icy air. “Not my mother  …”
    My fingers trip over themselves as I type into the database. I hold my breath, tapping my foot nervously as the computer