Chương 5
Margaret looked at her.
“Peter.”
Claire’s knees weakened.
She sat on the edge of the console because there was nowhere else.
Richard turned away and put both hands on his hips.
For a while no one spoke.
A landscaper started a leaf blower somewhere outside.
The absurd roar drifted faintly through the arched windows.
Claire began laughing again.
She could not stop the first two breaths.
Richard looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
She wiped under one eye.
“He always comes on Thursdays.”
“What?”
“The leaf blower.”
Richard stared.
Claire shook her head.
“Nothing.”
It was something.
Six Thursdays she had worked here.
Six Thursdays she had polished the downstairs banister while a man she had never met blew leaves from the courtyard.
She had learned the rhythms of the house that had been raising her son.
Oliver liked strawberry jam but not strawberry yogurt.
He wore his socks inside out because the seams bothered him.
He hated automatic hand dryers.
He slept with the hall light on if Richard was traveling.
He pretended not to be afraid of thunder.
Once, when Claire found him sitting on the stairs after midnight, he had asked if she believed dead people knew when you missed them.
She had answered too quickly.
“Yes.”
He had asked how.
Claire had said, “I don’t know.”
He had seemed satisfied.
Now she wondered whether she had been comforting her own child about a dead woman who had never been his mother.
Evelyn.
The woman whose photographs had been removed.
A dead woman who had wanted him before Claire knew his name.
A dead woman whose husband had raised him.
Nothing in the room fit into the clean shape Claire had imagined during seven years of grief.
Richard picked up his phone.
Margaret said, “Who are you calling?”
“A lawyer who isn’t Holloway.”
“You should think before you turn this into a public scandal.”
Richard looked at her.
“A public scandal.”
“Oliver is the one who will suffer.”
Claire looked up.
Margaret saw it and changed tactics immediately.
“That is what matters now.”
For one second, Claire hated that she was right.
Richard saw that too.
He lowered his phone.
Not because Margaret had won.
Because Oliver existed.
“What happens to him if this is true?” Richard asked.
Margaret said nothing.
Claire stared at the cracked portrait.
The answer was not that he came home with her.
She did not have a home suitable for him.
Her apartment had one bedroom and a radiator that knocked at night. She worked hourly jobs. She had seventy-eight dollars in checking until Friday. She had spent part of her savings on a private records researcher who stopped answering emails after Claire refused to pay another retainer.
Richard had money.
A school enrollment.
Doctors.
A bedroom with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.
Seven years of bedtime stories.
A life.
Claire’s grief wanted possession.
Love, if that was what she had for a boy she barely knew, required something harder.
Richard called his attorney.
He put the phone on speaker after introducing Claire and saying, with painful precision, “I believe there may have been fraud in my son’s adoption.”
The lawyer, a woman named Dana Rosenthal, did not gasp.
Claire liked her instantly for that.
Dana asked practical questions.
Did they have original documents?
Did anyone move the bracelets?
Was the photograph dated?
Was the adoption through an agency or private counsel?
Did Richard have the decree?
Was Oliver safe?
Was Claire safe?
Did anyone present intend to leave with the child?
Claire said no before Richard could answer.
Dana asked whether Claire had counsel.
Claire almost laughed.
“No.”
“You need your own.”
“I can’t afford your kind.”
“I’m not suggesting my firm represent you. In fact, we likely can’t. I can give you names of family-law attorneys and a nonprofit that handles contested adoption and identity cases.”
Margaret said, “This is unnecessary.”
Dana went quiet.
“Who is that?”
“My mother.”
“The woman Richard believes may have participated in the adoption?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Vale, please do not destroy, remove, delete, shred, discard, alter, or ask anyone else to alter any document, photograph, message, device, record, or object related to Oliver’s birth or adoption.”
Margaret gave Richard a look of disgust.
Dana continued, “Richard, take photographs of everything where it is before you move anything else. Then put the physical items somewhere secure. Do not send me pictures of medical information by ordinary text. We’ll set up a protected upload.”
Richard said, “Should I call the police?”
A pause.
“Yes. But understand that what happens next may not look like television. They may take a report, refer aspects to detectives, request records, and decide what falls under criminal versus family-court jurisdiction. You should also expect child-welfare questions because a minor is involved.”
Margaret stood.
“That is exactly why you should stop.”
Richard looked at her.
“No.”
The word was quiet.
Final.
Margaret walked upstairs.
No one stopped her.
Dana said, “Where is she going?”
“Her room.”
“Do you have reason to believe she may destroy records?”
Richard looked at Marcus.
Marcus looked at the stairs.
“Yes,” he said.
Richard followed his mother.
Claire remained by the console.
She did not know what to do with her hands.
Marcus returned from the kitchen alone.
“Oliver is eating cereal.”
“At eleven in the morning?”
“He asked for it.”
“What kind?”
Marcus gave her a strange look.
“Chocolate.”
“He hates chocolate cereal.”
“He said today was different.”
Claire looked away.
Marcus crouched beside the broken portrait.
“I should have said something years ago.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I knew enough to be uncomfortable.”
“That’s not the same as knowing.”
“I made it the same.”
Claire looked at him.
Marcus carefully placed one loose shard of glass onto a folded cloth.
“I told myself rich people do things differently.”
“That is a terrible excuse.”
“Yes.”
She had not expected him to agree.
He continued collecting the glass.
May you like
“Then I told myself it wasn’t my business.”
Claire sat beside him.
