“Yeah, but you just gave it something more lethal than any of those. You just fed it some GUH coffee.”

We arrive at the nursery, and I am really pleased to see that three NYPD officers have been posted outside the nursery near the viewing window.

“See that woman over there, the one in the burgundy pantsuit?” Troy asks.

“I can’t miss her,” I say.

“I know her. She’s a plainclothes cop. Her brother Peter is a good friend of mine.”

“That is music to my ears. An undercover cop in the nursery itself.”

I say hello to the nurses at the desk outside the nursery.

“Has the Morabito baby been put into his brace yet?” I ask one of them, a very sharp nurse by the name of Keesha.

“Yes, ma’am. Dr. Sarkar brought the baby down here just a little while ago. He had some other doctor with him. That woman just snapped the brace on the baby in two seconds. Baby Morabito is sleeping happily.”

“We’re going to go take a look at him,” I say.

“Go right ahead. He’s in crib number four, second row on the aisle,” says Keesha.

I’m frightened—for a second or two—that we’re about to find an empty crib.

“I know what you’re thinking,” says Troy.

“Yeah, well, then you’re thinking the same thing as me,” I say.

We follow the aisle to crib number four. It’s clearly marked BABY MORABITO. I bend over the sleeping baby, adorable, pudgy, serene, everything you want your baby to be. I reach in and lift his tiny arm and read his tiny wristband: MORABITO, 5 LBS, 4 OZ.

“I’ve never even seen one of those braces that they got on him,” says Troy.

“Me neither,” I say. “But it can’t hurt very much. He’s sleeping soundly.”

“Do you think they gave him like a teeny-tiny drop of Xanax or something?” Troy asks.

“Are you crazy?”

“I was only joshing with you, Lucy,” Troy says as he laughs.

“One never knows with…” Then I pause. I dip into the crib once more and read the wristband. Yes, it does say MORABITO, 5 LBS, 4 OZ.

Then I yell. “Jesus Christ, Troy. This is not the same baby we delivered.”

“Are you joking, too, Lucy?”

I walk a few feet to the emergency buzzer and press it fiercely, over and over and over. The NYPD officers enter. The nurse at the far end of the nursery, who’s been bottle feeding one of the newborns, rushes toward us. Keesha enters.

“What’s going on?” Keesha says.

“This is not the Morabito baby,” I shout at Keesha.

“Of course it is,” she says, almost more amused than angry at the accusation. “Just read the electronic wristband.”

“It may be electronic. And it may say ‘Morabito.’ But somebody’s fucked with it. The alarm didn’t go off. And this sure as hell isn’t the Morabito baby.”