The hospital director answered quietly.
“He resigned two days ago.”
Nobody spoke.
Two days before my delivery.
Two days before nine newborns were registered and another was transferred under questionable circumstances.
The police immediately began searching for him.
But Samar still had something else to tell us.
“I believe there were eleven newborn entries connected to the delivery and subsequent transfers,” she said. “However, I cannot tell you that eleven distinct children were delivered simply by looking at those records. Some entries may be duplicates. Others may refer to real babies whose identities were never properly finalized.”
For the first time, the mystery began to make sense.
The number eleven was not yet a medical fact.
It was a warning that the records could not be trusted.
The police ordered the hospital to suspend all nonessential transfers until every newborn had been accounted for. Each child was assigned a temporary identification number, and the medical team began reconciling the delivery notes, neonatal records, and transfer logs.
