Chương 8
“I checked the sacramental index.”
“And?”
“There are two baptism entries with your daughter’s name.”
Claire’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Two?”
“Same date of birth, same mother, different baptism dates.”
Nathan was watching her now.
Claire mouthed, Two.
His eyebrows drew together.
“When is the other one?”
“Four days earlier.”
“Earlier than what?”
“The certificate you received.”
Claire looked at the photograph of Evelyn outside St. Gabriel’s.
The date on its back was May 18.
Four days after Lucy’s birth.
Her own birth, according to Nathan, had somehow become tangled into the same church and the same woman.
“What date?”
“May eighteenth.”
Claire sat down.
“That’s the date on the photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“Never mind.”
Margaret did not let it go.
“Claire, what photograph?”
“One of my mother outside St. Gabriel’s with Marianne.”
Silence.
“When?”
“The year I was born.”
Margaret inhaled sharply.
“Send it to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to see my sister.”
The answer was so naked that Claire’s suspicion loosened despite herself.
She sent the image.
Margaret did not speak for almost half a minute.
When she finally did, her voice was smaller.
“That’s her.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then you knew my mother.”
“No.”
“They’re standing together.”
“I never said Marianne didn’t know Evelyn.”
Claire stood.
“You asked me whether my mother ever used your sister’s name like you’d never heard of Evelyn Mercer before tonight.”
“I hadn’t.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“My sister kept parts of her life separate.”
“Convenient.”
“Do you think I enjoy discovering that the woman in the last photograph anyone has of Marianne was your mother?”
Claire looked at Nathan.
He had heard enough to understand.
His face had lost its defensive hardness.
“When was the last time you saw Marianne?” Claire asked.
“May twenty-first.”
“The year I was born?”
“No.”
Margaret paused.
“The year Lucy was born.”
Claire’s skin prickled.
“You said she disappeared six years ago.”
“She did.”
“Then the photograph can’t be the last one.”
“I meant the last photograph I have from before she disappeared.”
Claire heard paper shifting.
“She was obsessed with old records that spring.”
“What records?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“She worked at a dental office.”
“Yes.”
“So why church records?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because my sister vanished before she explained herself.”
The anger in Margaret’s voice broke on the final word.
Claire softened despite herself.
“What happened on May twenty-first?”
“Marianne came to my apartment.”
“Why?”
“She wanted me to keep something for her.”
“What?”
“A key.”
Claire glanced at Nathan.
“To what?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you give it to the police?”
“I did.”
Claire frowned.
“You just said you have it.”
“They gave it back after they couldn’t identify what it opened.”
“Can I see it?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“Tonight.”
“Claire—”
“Tonight.”
Margaret exhaled.
“I’ll meet you at the church in forty minutes.”
“Thirty.”
“Forty.”
Margaret hung up.
Nathan said, “You’re not going alone.”
“I wasn’t asking permission.”
“I wasn’t giving it.”
He picked up the banker’s box.
Claire blocked him.
“Where are you taking that?”
“With us.”
“No.”
“Claire, somebody just came to my house looking for it.”
“That’s why it stays here.”
“That is exactly why it doesn’t.”
She looked toward the window.
The sedan was gone.
“Who is the storage manager?”
“Her name is Diane something.”
“You met her this morning?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That Mom’s account had gone delinquent because the card expired.”
“And she handed you this box?”
“She opened the unit with me.”
“What else was inside?”
Nathan hesitated.
“A chair.”
Claire stared at him.
“A chair?”
“A folding chair, one lamp, two empty plastic bins, and this.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“So Mom paid for a storage unit for seventeen years to keep one box.”
“Apparently.”
“That’s insane.”
“I’m aware.”
Claire opened the box again.
The documents had no obvious organization.
Old receipts sat beside medical statements, photographs, canceled checks, and envelopes addressed in Evelyn’s handwriting.
“Did you remove anything?”
“No.”
“Did Diane?”
“Not while I was there.”
Claire lifted a stack of envelopes.
Underneath lay a small brown accordion folder secured with a red elastic band.
Nathan frowned.
“I didn’t see that.”
“You went through the box.”
“Not every piece.”
Claire slipped off the band.
Inside were copies of hospital records from the week she was born.
Most meant nothing to her.
Charges, room numbers, handwritten initials.
Then she found two discharge forms.
One named Evelyn Mercer.
The other named Marianne Vale.
Both women had been patients at St. Vincent’s.
Claire read the dates.
They had been admitted one day apart.
Discharged on the same day.
Nathan pulled out the chair beside her.
“Why was Marianne in the hospital?”
Claire turned the page.
The diagnosis field was partly obscured by a bad photocopy, but one word remained legible.
Postpartum.
Neither spoke.
Nathan finally said, “She had a baby.”
Claire pushed the paper away.
“No.”
“That’s what it says.”
“It says postpartum.”
“Which means—”
“I know what it means.”
Her phone buzzed with a message from Daniel.
Lucy wants to know whether Clementine can sleep in her bed despite “previous behavioral concerns.”
Claire stared at the message.
She could see Daniel composing it, deliberately making the evening ordinary for Lucy.
Her anger toward him remained, but it had become inconveniently mixed with gratitude.
She typed, Clementine gets one more chance.
Daniel replied almost immediately.
Merciful.
Then another message appeared.
Come home before you decide anything you can’t undo.
Claire did not answer.
Nathan was still examining the hospital records.
“There should be infant discharge records.”
“Why?”
“Because if Marianne gave birth—”
“Stop.”
“Claire.”
“I said stop.”
He put the pages down.
Claire stood and walked to the kitchen.
She poured herself water and drank half the glass before realizing Nathan’s hands were shaking too.
She had spent the evening treating him as though he had possessed these answers for years.
May you like
He had known them for hours.
“What did Mom tell you about when I was born?”
