Chương 4
Margaret’s eyebrows lifted.
“I was paying your medical expenses.”
“You offered to help me.”
“I did help you.”
Claire stared at her.
Richard said, “Start at the beginning.”
Margaret looked tired suddenly.
Not guilty.
Tired.
It infuriated Claire.
“There is no beginning that will satisfy you.”
“Try.”
Margaret folded her hands.
“Your wife had been dead eleven months.”
Richard’s face tightened.
Claire knew that part.
The household still contained photographs of Evelyn Vale, though Margaret had moved most of them away from the main rooms before Claire arrived. Evelyn had died of an aneurysm at thirty-one. Richard rarely spoke of her.
“You were barely functioning,” Margaret continued. “You had completed most of the adoption process with Evelyn before she died. You wanted to withdraw. I persuaded you not to.”
Richard said nothing.
“You wanted a child,” Margaret said. “Evelyn wanted a child. I believed you should not lose everything because she died.”
“And Claire?”
Margaret looked toward her.
“She had contacted the agency months earlier.”
Claire’s anger became confused.
“What agency?”
“The family-placement agency.”
“I never contacted an adoption agency.”
“You filled out an inquiry.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“I filled out a form for housing assistance.”
Margaret blinked.
Claire felt cold.
“The clinic gave me a folder after my first prenatal appointment. There were programs for food, housing, transportation. I called a number because my landlord was selling the building.”
Margaret looked away.
Richard saw it.
“What did Holloway do?”
Margaret’s jaw hardened.
“Peter knew people.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he found an opportunity.”
Claire whispered, “An opportunity.”
Margaret did not apologize.
“You were pregnant, unmarried, unemployed, and sleeping on a friend’s sofa.”
“I had a job.”
“You worked twelve hours a week at a diner.”
“Because I was pregnant.”
“You had no health insurance.”
“I was on Medicaid.”
“You had no plan.”
“I had a crib.”
The stupidity of the sentence struck Claire as soon as she said it.
A crib.
As if motherhood could be proved by owning furniture.
But she remembered the crib.
Used, white paint chipped along one rail, bought from a woman in Troy for thirty dollars. Claire had sanded the rough spots herself in the parking lot behind her friend Lena’s apartment because the chemical smell made Lena nauseous.
She had kept one screw in a kitchen drawer for three years after the crib was gone.
Margaret looked at her as though the detail did not deserve an answer.
Richard said, “Did Holloway approach her?”
“Yes.”
Claire shook her head.
“No one approached me about adoption.”
Margaret’s eyes met hers.
“Not directly.”
The room went silent.
Richard’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“What did you do?”
Margaret pressed her thumb against the edge of her brooch.
“I asked the social worker to discuss options.”
Claire remembered a woman named Susan.
Soft voice.
Purple glasses.
She had sat beside Claire’s hospital bed the afternoon before delivery and asked whether Claire had anyone who could help with the baby.
Claire had said her mother was dead, her father was in Arizona somewhere, and Lena had a one-bedroom apartment.
Susan had asked if Claire had considered temporary placement.
Claire had said no.
Susan had brought forms anyway.
Claire had thrown them in the trash.
“You had someone come to me,” Claire said.
Margaret did not deny it.
Richard stepped backward.
His calf hit the bench.
He sat down.
“You told me the birth mother had chosen us.”
Margaret’s face tightened.
“In the end, she signed.”
“I signed medical forms.”
“You signed consent.”
“I signed something because a nurse told me they needed permission to transfer my baby to another hospital.”
Richard looked at Claire.
“Transfer?”
Claire pressed her fist to her mouth.
The memory came with a smell.
Orange hand soap.
The hospital had used orange soap in the bathroom. For years she could not peel a clementine without becoming nauseous.
“My baby had trouble breathing,” she said. “They took him to the nursery. A nurse told me he needed a higher level of care. She gave me forms. I signed them.”
Margaret said, “You signed without reading.”
“I had just given birth.”
“You signed.”
“You told them to lie.”
“I told them what was necessary.”
Richard stood again.
“What was necessary?”
Margaret’s composure cracked.
“To stop you from destroying yourself.”
Richard stared at her.
“You thought giving me somebody else’s child would fix me?”
“I thought being needed might.”
Claire recoiled.
Richard’s face went white.
Margaret realized what she had said.
For the first time she looked ashamed.
Not of Claire.
Of the way she had reduced her own son.
Richard laughed once, almost silently.
“You thought a baby was medicine.”
“I thought you were dying.”
“So you stole one?”
“I did not steal him.”
Claire moved before she decided to.
She crossed the room until only the broken portrait separated her from Margaret.
“You told me he was dead.”
Margaret stood.
“I was told you had signed the relinquishment.”
“You told me my baby died.”
“I was not the physician.”
“You stood beside my bed.”
“I repeated what I had been told.”
“By who?”
Margaret did not answer.
Claire’s voice rose.
“By who?”
Richard stepped between them.
“Claire.”
She hated him for it.
She shoved his arm away.
“Don’t.”
He lowered it immediately.
“Okay.”
That made her angrier somehow.
She turned on Margaret.
“I asked to see him.”
Margaret’s face changed.
A tiny movement.
Claire saw it.
“I asked to see his body.”
Margaret looked toward the windows.
“You were extremely unwell.”
“That is not an answer.”
“There had been complications.”
“That is not an answer.”
Richard said, “Mother.”
Margaret’s voice sharpened.
“What would you like me to say? That I made decisions under extraordinary circumstances? I did. That I believed the placement was legal? I did. That Peter assured me Claire had signed everything required? He did.”
Claire stared.
“And when I asked to see my dead baby?”
Margaret swallowed.
May you like
“I was told it would be better if you didn’t.”
“Who told you?”
