4.3.25 - The Book Keepers Dilemma pt 11

Parable 11: The Baby That Looked Like Her

The baby woke up singing.

Not babbling. Not cooing.

Singing.

A soft melody, minor key, slow and deliberate. Each syllable shaped like it had been practiced. Not words—but not nonsense either.

Father froze at the doorway to her room. The crib was the same. The blankets were the same. The mobile turned like always.

But the sound coming from her mouth did not belong to a child just shy of one.

He stepped closer. She stopped. Looked at him. Smiled.

And said, “You’re earlier this time.”

He told no one.

He fed her. Changed her. Carried her into the kitchen, where Mother was slicing strawberries for the twins.

“Did she talk yet today?” he asked, too casually.

Mother shook her head. “Not a real word, but she’s been doing that sing-song thing again. She’s always been a musical baby.”

“No,” he said. “She wasn’t.”

Mother stopped slicing.

“She’s always hummed. Even in the NICU.”

“She wasn’t in the NICU.”

Mother looked up slowly. “She was. After the fire. For observation. You were the one who stayed overnight.”

He felt the floor tilt slightly beneath him.

That night, he found a photo album he didn’t recognize.

It was on the top shelf of the closet. Dustless.

Inside: images of the baby in a different crib. A different blanket. A stuffed animal he’d never seen—a plush giraffe with one torn ear.

In one photo, he was holding her.

But his face looked… off.

Thinner. Paler. The scar above his eyebrow gone.

He flipped to the back of the album. A note, scribbled in his own handwriting:

“Keep this version. She laughs more.”

The next morning, the baby refused her usual bottle.

She pointed to the cabinet where the toddler pouches were stored.

She had never eaten from those.

When he looked back at her, she said, perfectly clearly:

“Don’t make this harder.”

He backed away slowly.

Mother walked in, picked the baby up.

“Someone’s got a voice today,” she said.

“She just said a sentence.”

Mother blinked. “That’s what babies do, love. They have leaps.”

He shook his head. “No. That wasn’t a leap. That was a choice.”

Mother turned her back.

And the baby—over her shoulder—winked.

That evening, Father called the pediatrician. Asked when their next scheduled developmental check-in was.

The receptionist paused.

“Sir, according to our system… your daughter isn’t a patient here.”

“She’s been coming here since birth.”

The receptionist double-checked. “Do you have a birthdate?”

He gave it.

“Are you sure that’s correct?” she asked gently. “Because we have no record of that child ever being registered.”

He hung up.

He checked the baby book.

It was filled out.

Not by him.

Entries he didn’t write. Milestones he didn’t witness. Dates he didn’t live.

One page read:

“First word: version.”

He took the baby outside. Just the two of them. Sat beneath the crape myrtle.

She squirmed in his lap. Then stilled. Then spoke.

“Are you sad I’m not her?”

He didn’t answer.

She rested her head against his chest.

“I’m not wrong,” she whispered. “I’m just closer to the pattern.”

That night, when he tried to remember her birth, the memory played like surveillance footage.

A fixed angle. A fluorescent hum.

And no one holding the camera.