Chương 5
At the hospital in Glenwood Springs, Ethan refused a wheelchair.
Then he tried to walk and nearly collapsed because his left foot had gone numb.
He looked furious with himself.
Arthur carried him.
A nurse found him warm socks with blue rubber grips.
Ethan disliked the rubber.
“They feel sticky.”
“They’re supposed to.”
“Why?”
“So you don’t fall.”
“I already fell.”
Arthur looked at him.
Ethan shrugged.
“That part’s done.”
Arthur turned his face away because, unexpectedly, he was close to tears.
The physician found no serious injury, though Ethan had mild hypothermia and needed observation.
A county deputy interviewed Arthur in a family consultation room.
Arthur answered every question.
He hated every question.
When had he first met Ethan?
Eleven months ago.
Why was Ethan living partly with him if guardianship was disputed?
Because a court had authorized temporary contact.
Who had introduced them?
Richard Cole.
Where was Cole now?
Arthur did not know.
When had he last spoken with Vanessa before tonight?
Four days earlier through attorneys.
Had she threatened Ethan?
Not explicitly.
Why had Arthur personally traveled to Colorado instead of letting police recover the child?
Arthur looked at the deputy.
“Because the last time I waited for professionals to tell me what happened to someone I loved, I buried the wrong answer.”
The deputy paused.
Then wrote something down.
At four fifteen, Daniel came into the consultation room.
“We found Cole.”
Arthur stood.
“Where?”
“Dead.”
Arthur stared.
“Where?”
“His apartment in Boston. Police did a welfare check after we couldn’t reach him.”
“How?”
“Unknown yet.”
Arthur sat again.
The deputy across from him stopped writing.
Daniel added, “He may have been dead for several days.”
Arthur rubbed both hands over his face.
The gesture felt strangely intimate in front of other men.
“What was the last contact?”
“With our counsel, nine days ago.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was withdrawing from representation because of a conflict.”
Arthur looked up.
“He never filed that.”
“No.”
The deputy asked, “Was this attorney involved in the child’s placement?”
Arthur nodded.
Daniel’s phone vibrated again.
He checked it, then looked at Arthur.
“Mr. Hale.”
Arthur hated the formality.
It meant Daniel was about to say something he did not want to say.
“What?”
“Boston police found a note in Cole’s apartment.”
“A suicide note?”
“They haven’t characterized it.”
“What does it say?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Three words.”
Arthur waited.
Daniel looked toward the deputy, then back.
“She never died.”
By morning the storm had closed half the mountain roads and trapped Arthur, Ethan, two security men, three lawyers, one county investigator, and a growing number of questions in western Colorado.
Vanessa refused to speak without counsel.
Arthur refused to sleep.
Ethan finally did.
He curled on his side in the hospital bed with the recovered mitten under his pillow.
Arthur sat beside him until dawn turned the windows gray.
At seven, a nurse brought coffee that tasted burned enough to strip paint.
Arthur drank it anyway.
He had been holding the paper cup for several minutes when Ethan opened his eyes.
“Is that coffee?”
“Yes.”
“You hate hospital coffee.”
Arthur looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“You said it before.”
“When?”
“When I broke my arm.”
Arthur remembered.
Three months earlier Ethan had fallen from a climbing wall at school orientation. Arthur had spent five hours in an emergency department complaining about the coffee and pretending not to be afraid.
Ethan remembered.
Arthur smiled.
“Apparently I complain too much.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Ethan sat up.
His hair stuck in several directions.
“Is Vanessa here?”
“No.”
“Where is she?”
“With police.”
“Did she tell you about Mom?”
“Not yet.”
Ethan picked at the edge of the blanket.
“Are you mad at me?”
Arthur stared.
“No.”
“You looked mad.”
“I am angry.”
“At me?”
“Never at you for this.”
Ethan considered the distinction.
“Sometimes you get mad at me.”
“Yes.”
“You got mad when I put pennies in your fish tank.”
“I did.”
“The fish were okay.”
“The filter was not.”
Ethan almost smiled.
Arthur leaned forward.
“I need to tell you something.”
The smile disappeared.
Arthur hated himself for causing that.
“The tests that said you and I are family may have problems.”
Ethan’s face became blank in the way children’s faces sometimes did when they were trying to look older.
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It means we need a new one, and this time we do it ourselves, with doctors we both meet.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Then okay.”
Arthur nodded.
Ethan stared at the mitten beneath his hand.
“If it says I’m not, do I have to go?”
Arthur’s answer came faster this time.
“No.”
Ethan looked at him.
“Why?”
Because Arthur had promised.
Because the boy had slept in his house, spilled chocolate milk on his Persian rug, complained about asparagus, left plastic dinosaurs in Arthur’s shoes, and once waited outside his bedroom at two in the morning because he had dreamed Arthur died.
Because biology mattered enormously and not at all.
Because someone had spent six years constructing lies around this child, and Arthur was done allowing adults to make his existence conditional.
He did not say any of that.
“Because you’re six,” he said. “And you shouldn’t have to solve the adults before breakfast.”
Ethan nodded.
“That makes more sense.”
The new DNA samples were collected at nine twenty-three that morning under police observation.
Arthur watched the nurse swab Ethan’s cheek.
Ethan watched the nurse swab Arthur’s.
“Yours took longer.”
“I have more cheek.”
Ethan laughed.
It was the first time Arthur had heard him laugh since arriving at the terminal.
The sound surprised both of them.
At ten, Arthur’s daughter called.
Not Margaret.
His younger daughter, Caroline.
Arthur had avoided telling her anything until he had facts.
Daniel told her instead after news of Vanessa’s detention reached a Denver television station.
Caroline began the call without hello.
“Is Ethan okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
May you like
“That means no.”
Arthur looked through the hospital window.
