May I See Your Birthmark?
“May I see your birthmark?”
The words came from the elegant woman seated alone at the corner table of the quiet French restaurant, soft enough that they might have been mistaken for an ordinary question.
But there was something underneath them.
Something trembling.
The young waitress stopped beside the table.
She had just placed a porcelain cup of coffee beside the woman’s plate when the strange request interrupted the rhythm of her evening.
Her name tag read Emily Carter.
For a moment, Emily simply stared at the woman.
The customer looked to be in her late fifties, perhaps early sixties. Her silver-blonde hair was swept into a precise knot at the back of her head. She wore a cream-colored jacket, a pearl necklace, and a wedding ring that looked old enough to have belonged to another generation.
Everything about her suggested wealth and composure.
Yet her hands were shaking.
Emily glanced down at her own wrist.
“You mean the mark on my wrist?”
The woman swallowed.
“Yes.”
Emily hesitated.
The request was unusual.
Very unusual.
She had worked at Maison Laurent for almost two years, and in that time customers had asked her for recommendations, wine pairings, extra napkins, directions to the restroom, and once, memorably, whether the chef could prepare a dessert shaped like a swan.
Nobody had ever asked to see her birthmark.
Still, there was nothing threatening in the woman’s expression.
Only desperation.
Emily slowly pushed the sleeve of her black uniform upward.
A small, heart-shaped birthmark rested on the inside of her left wrist.
It was no larger than a coin.
Dark red at the center, fading softly around the edges.
“I've had it since I was a baby,” Emily said.
The woman across the table went completely still.
Her eyes locked onto the mark.
The restaurant seemed to disappear around her.
The soft piano music.
The clinking glasses.
The low conversations.
The smell of butter, rosemary, and freshly baked bread.
All of it vanished.
There was only that tiny heart.
That impossible little shape.
The woman’s fork slipped from her fingers.
Clink.
Emily blinked.
“Ma’am?”
The woman didn't answer.
Her breathing became shallow.
Her lips parted.
She looked at Emily’s wrist as though she were staring at a ghost.
Then she whispered something so quietly that Emily almost didn't hear it.
“Twenty-three years.”
Emily frowned.
“What?”
The woman raised her eyes.
Tears were gathering in them.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
The woman stood abruptly.
Her chair scraped violently across the polished floor.
Several nearby diners turned.
The maître d'hôtel looked over from the entrance.
Emily instinctively stepped back.
The woman pressed one hand against her chest.
“What is your name?”
“Emily.”
“Emily what?”
“Emily Carter.”
The woman’s face drained of color.
“Who told you that?”
Emily stared at her.
“Told me what?”
“Your name.”
“No one. It’s my name.”
The woman shook her head.
“No.”
She whispered the word as though arguing with herself.
“No, no, no.”
Emily looked around, increasingly uncomfortable.
“Are you all right?”
The woman reached into her handbag with trembling fingers.
She pulled out a leather wallet.
For a second, Emily thought she was going to produce identification.
Instead, the woman pulled out a photograph.
Old.
Faded.
The edges were worn white from years of being touched.
She held it out.
Emily looked down.
It showed a young woman sitting in a hospital room.
The woman was younger by at least twenty-five years.
Her dark hair fell over her shoulders.
She was crying.
And in her arms was a tiny newborn baby wrapped in a pale pink blanket.
Emily stared.
Something about the photograph made her stomach tighten.
“Who is that?”
The woman’s voice broke.
“That was me.”
Emily looked back at her.
“And the baby?”
The woman closed her eyes.
“My daughter.”
The room seemed to grow colder.
“What happened to her?”
The woman looked at the photograph.
Then at Emily.
“She died before I could take her home.”
Emily's expression softened.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
The woman shook her head.
“She was alive.”
Emily said nothing.
The woman’s fingers tightened around the photograph.
“They told me she died.”
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“They told me she died in a hospital fire.”
Emily looked at the photograph again.
The baby’s tiny left hand rested outside the blanket.
Even in the faded image, the wrist was visible.
And there, barely noticeable, was the same heart-shaped mark.
Emily’s breath caught.
She slowly pulled her sleeve back down.
The woman noticed.
“What happened to your mother?” she asked.
Emily stiffened.
“My adoptive mother?”
The woman stared.
“Adoptive?”
Emily nodded.
“Yes.”
The woman sat down again.
This time she seemed unable to remain standing.