Mason stepped back sharply. He stamped his foot. “I do not want to talk about dreams. I found him. I want to go back and get him.”
That night, after Mason had finally fallen asleep, Breanna sat at the dining table with an old box of hospital papers. She read the discharge documents for the thousandth time. She read the medical notes again and again, trying to decipher the handwriting.
Her vision narrowed to a faint, nearly erased pencil line near the bottom of the page.
“Twin gestation. Possible neonatal complication.”
She pressed her hand over her mouth as nausea climbed her throat. Why had no one told her. What else had been hidden. She remembered Trevor’s mother signing forms at the hospital reception desk while Breanna lay unconscious. She remembered questions she was told not to ask.
The next morning, Breanna looked at Trevor with resolve she did not feel ready for.
“We are going back to the plaza,” she said. “I will not hide from this anymore.”
Trevor hesitated. “Bree, this sounds dangerous. We do not know who that kid is or what his situation is.”
Breanna swallowed. “Then we find out.”
They returned to the plaza where the air smelled of roasted chiles and dust. Milo sat at the fountain, alone, his empty cardboard box beside him. His aunt was nowhere in sight. The moment Mason saw Milo, he sprinted ahead and wrapped his arms around him. Milo startled, then hugged back fiercely. Trevor and Breanna approached, and Trevor exhaled sharply when he truly saw Milo up close.
“My God,” he whispered. “This cannot be coincidence.”
Breanna knelt. “Milo, do you know your birthday.”
Milo scrunched his nose. “Aunt Delores says it is fireworks day. When the sky sparkles. When she heard cheers outside the hospital window.”
Trevor blinked. “Mason was born on New Year’s Eve. During the fireworks.”
A terrible clarity cracked open in Breanna’s mind. She looked at Trevor, and he knew what she was thinking. He shook his head slowly, denial clinging to him like armor.
They took Milo’s hand and walked to the nearest community hospital. The receptionist, a middle aged woman named Eileen Romero, listened as Breanna explained, voice wavering, about a lost medical record and a possible twin.
Eileen studied the screen, brows furrowing. “There is a record for a child born here that night. Paper files only. And some pages are missing. I will check the archive.”