Chương 8
“Yes.”
Oliver looked at Claire.
“Does that mean she wasn’t my real mom?”
Claire’s chest hurt.
“No.”
The answer came easily.
“She was your mom.”
“But you are.”
“Yes.”
“So both?”
“If that’s okay with you.”
Oliver looked irritated.
“Why do I have to decide if it’s okay?”
Richard rubbed his knee.
“You don’t.”
“Everybody keeps asking me things.”
Claire said, “Then we can stop.”
Oliver looked at her.
“Stop what?”
“Asking.”
He thought about it.
“Can we get pizza?”
Richard looked at Claire.
Claire looked at Richard.
Oliver groaned.
“See? You do that.”
“Do what?” Richard asked.
“Look at each other like there’s a meeting.”
Claire laughed.
Richard almost did.
They ordered pizza.
Oliver ate one slice and a half.
Then he went upstairs because his stomach hurt.
After he left, Claire and Richard sat at opposite ends of the dining table.
“He’s overwhelmed,” Richard said.
“So am I.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
Richard looked at her.
“Fair.”
They sat in silence.
Claire peeled the label from a water bottle.
Richard asked, “Why did you take the job?”
She told him about the invoice.
The law office.
The old hospital records.
Her request to the agency.
“You knew Oliver might be your child before you came here?”
“I suspected there was a child connected to the Vales and the hospital.”
“But not him specifically?”
“I found a birth announcement online from seven years ago.”
Richard’s mouth tightened.
Claire continued.
“The dates matched.”
“You could have contacted me.”
“I tried.”
He looked up.
“When?”
“Twice.”
“I never got anything.”
“I sent letters.”
“Where?”
“Your office.”
Richard stood and walked to a cabinet.
He returned with his phone.
“Dates?”
Claire gave them.
He sent a message to his executive assistant.
Five minutes later she responded.
Both letters had been logged and forwarded to Richard’s family office.
At the time, Margaret still reviewed personal correspondence.
Richard stared at the screen.
Claire did not need him to say anything.
Another door locked by the same hand.
“I applied to the household agency after that,” she said.
Richard looked at her.
“You came into my home under false pretenses.”
“Yes.”
The accusation hurt because it was true.
“I cleaned your toilets too, if that helps.”
He stared.
Claire regretted the joke.
Then Richard laughed.
A short, unwilling sound.
They both looked embarrassed.
“I’m not saying you were wrong,” he said.
“I was deceptive.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know how else to get near the truth.”
“I understand.”
“Don’t.”
He nodded.
“Right.”
A week later, family court granted Claire scheduled contact while the legal challenge proceeded.
Not custody.
Not a reversal of Oliver’s life.
Contact.
Two supervised visits the first week, then a review.
Claire hated the word supervised.
Simone told her to get over it.
“The court does not know you.”
“He does.”
“He has known you as household staff for six weeks.”
“I’m his mother.”
“Biologically.”
Claire slammed her bag onto Simone’s desk.
Simone waited.
Claire breathed through her nose.
“I hate you again.”
“I’ll note that in the file.”
The first supervised visit took place in a family-services center with beige carpet and toys missing pieces.
Claire had imagined taking Oliver somewhere special.
A museum.
A park.
Ice cream.
Instead they sat at a child-size table while a social worker named Denise typed notes.
Oliver drew a dragon.
Claire drew what he called “a sick horse.”
“It’s a dog.”
“It needs a doctor.”
“You’re rude.”
“You draw bad.”
“Also rude.”
Denise hid a smile.
The visit lasted ninety minutes.
At the end, Oliver hugged Claire and asked when he would see her again.
“Thursday.”
“That’s far.”
“It’s two days.”
“That’s far when you’re seven.”
Claire looked at Denise.
Denise gave a small nod.
Claire crouched.
“I’ll be there Thursday.”
He left with Richard.
Claire walked to the bus stop alone.
She cried only after the bus arrived.
Not dramatically.
She sat near the back and kept her face turned toward the window while tears slid down her cheeks.
Nobody noticed except an elderly woman across the aisle, who offered her a tissue without asking anything.
Claire took it.
“Thanks.”
The woman nodded.
That was all.
Two weeks into the investigation, police recovered copies of Holloway’s archived files from off-site storage.
Several pages of Claire’s supposed relinquishment were missing.
Others contained signatures.
Simone enlarged one on her computer.
Claire stared.
“That looks like mine.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t sign that.”
“Then we need an expert.”
The expert later concluded that some signatures were likely traced from medical forms.
One was genuine.
That one frightened Claire.
It appeared beneath language authorizing temporary placement of her newborn while she recovered.
Temporary.
Not permanent.
The document had been folded into a packet that later appeared in court as evidence of her intent to relinquish.
The agency itself had closed after a state audit four years earlier for unrelated recordkeeping problems.
No single document solved everything.
They accumulated.
A nurse’s note indicating Claire repeatedly asked when she could see her baby.
A discharge summary falsely recording that the infant had been transferred.
No receiving-hospital record.
A payment from a Vale family trust to Holloway’s firm two days later.
A second payment to a hospital social worker six weeks afterward, labeled consulting.
The social worker, now living in Florida, initially refused to speak.
Then her attorney contacted investigators.
Richard found out before Claire did.
He called her at eleven at night.
She was in bed reading a mystery novel she had not absorbed for twenty pages.
“What happened?”
“She’s cooperating.”
Claire sat up.
“Who?”
“Susan Meyer.”
The social worker.
Claire swung her legs to the floor.
“What did she say?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then why are you calling?”
Richard went quiet.
“Because I didn’t want you to find out from Simone tomorrow and think I knew tonight.”
Claire pressed her fingers to her eyes.
“Okay.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
He laughed softly.
“You told me to stop saying that.”
May you like
“That was different.”
They stayed on the phone.
