Chương 9
Neither spoke for almost a minute.
Then Richard said, “Oliver lost a tooth.”
Claire smiled in the dark.
“Tonight?”
“About twenty minutes ago.”
“Did he freak out?”
“He tried to negotiate with the tooth fairy in advance.”
“That sounds like him.”
“He wrote a note requesting inflation adjustment.”
Claire laughed.
“Seven?”
“I may have made financial literacy a little too interesting.”
“Please tell me you’re not giving him twenty dollars.”
“Five.”
“Richard.”
“Three?”
“One.”
“That seems harsh.”
“He’s seven.”
“He lives in a mansion.”
“Exactly. He can survive adversity.”
Richard laughed.
For a few seconds they were two adults discussing a child.
Not plaintiff and adoptive father.
Not victim and beneficiary.
Something easier.
That frightened Claire too.
Susan Meyer’s statement changed the case.
She admitted Holloway had pressured her to present temporary-placement documents as adoption counseling. She claimed Margaret told her Claire had become unstable and would abandon the child. Susan had accepted money later for “administrative consulting” and had never questioned where it came from.
Claire read the statement twice.
“She says I threatened to kill myself.”
Simone nodded.
“I never did.”
“I know.”
“She wrote that in my chart.”
“Yes.”
“People believed it.”
“Yes.”
Claire stood and walked to the window.
Traffic crawled below.
“You know what the worst part is?”
Simone waited.
“I was depressed afterward.”
Claire laughed without humor.
“I drank too much. I missed work. I stopped answering Lena’s calls. If someone looked at me six months later, they could say, see? Unstable.”
“You were grieving.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Claire turned.
“Don’t therapist me.”
“I’m a lawyer. We charge more.”
Claire almost smiled.
The criminal investigation expanded.
Margaret’s attorney issued a statement saying she had relied on professional advice and believed every action served Oliver’s welfare.
The story might have remained private if not for the civil filing needed to challenge the adoption record.
A local reporter found the docket.
Within forty-eight hours, photographers waited outside the Vale property.
Richard’s company issued a statement saying the matter was personal and that he had no knowledge of irregularities in the adoption.
Claire’s name appeared online.
So did her old address.
Someone found an arrest record from six years earlier for public intoxication.
The charge had been dismissed.
The headline did not care.
BIRTH MOTHER IN VALE ADOPTION SCANDAL HAD TROUBLED PAST.
Claire read it on her lunch break at the hotel where she had returned to work part-time.
She locked her phone and cleaned room 412.
The guest had left wet towels on the bed.
Claire stripped the sheets.
Her hands shook.
A coworker named Rosa came in carrying toiletries.
“You see internet?”
Claire nodded.
Rosa put the shampoo bottles down.
“My cousin was arrested for biting a cop.”
Claire stared.
Rosa shrugged.
“He’s a dentist now.”
Claire laughed so hard she had to sit on the bed frame.
It helped for almost a minute.
Then the hotel manager asked Claire to take several days off because reporters had begun calling the front desk.
Paid?
No.
Claire sat in her car afterward and screamed once.
Not from grief.
From money.
She had bills.
Legal assistance covered part of Simone’s work, but not transportation, missed shifts, meals, or the thousand other costs nobody put in news stories.
Richard offered financial help.
Claire refused.
Then her electric bill came.
She called him back.
“I need to ask something humiliating.”
Richard said, “Okay.”
“I lost shifts.”
He went quiet.
“I can—”
“No cash.”
“Okay.”
“I want the agency placement wages you still owe me plus the two weeks severance in the contract.”
Richard paused.
“That’s not humiliating.”
“It feels humiliating.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“Don’t.”
“Right.”
He paid exactly what the contract required.
Nothing more.
Claire trusted him another millimeter.
Oliver struggled.
He had nightmares.
He became angry at school.
Once he shoved another boy who said his real mother was on television.
Richard called Claire afterward.
“I don’t know what to do.”
It was the first time he had admitted that without trying to solve it before the sentence ended.
Claire said, “What does his therapist say?”
“That he needs predictable routines and fewer adult conversations around him.”
“Sounds right.”
“He wants to see you tonight.”
“Is that because he wants me or because you need help?”
Richard went silent.
Claire regretted the question.
Then he said, “Both.”
She went.
Oliver sat under the dining table.
Not at it.
Under it.
Claire crouched several feet away.
“Nice place.”
“Go away.”
“Okay.”
She sat against the wall.
Richard hovered in the doorway.
Claire waved him off.
He left reluctantly.
Ten minutes passed.
Oliver said, “Everybody knows.”
“Some people know.”
“Jackson’s mom said I was kidnapped.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“That word is complicated.”
“Was I?”
“I don’t know what the police will call it.”
“Did Grandma steal me?”
Claire picked at a loose thread on her sleeve.
“She kept me from you. She lied to me. It looks like she helped people use papers that weren’t true.”
“That means yes.”
Claire did not answer.
Oliver crawled out from beneath the table.
“Do you hate her?”
“Yes.”
He stared.
Claire had not meant to be so fast.
She considered taking it back.
Didn’t.
“I hate what she did,” Claire said. “And sometimes I hate her too.”
Oliver’s eyes filled.
“I love her.”
Claire’s heart twisted.
“I know.”
“Is that bad?”
“No.”
“She took me to the aquarium every birthday.”
“Okay.”
“She makes pancakes shaped like letters.”
“I can barely make round ones.”
A smile almost appeared.
Then disappeared.
“I miss her.”
Claire nodded.
“That makes sense.”
“Dad doesn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He never says her name.”
Claire looked toward the doorway.
Richard was out of sight.
“He’s angry.”
“So are you.”
“Yes.”
“You say her name.”
“Margaret.”
Oliver frowned at her.
Claire shrugged.
He laughed despite himself.
Then he cried.
Claire held him when he came to her.
She did not tell him everything would be fine.
She had stopped trusting sentences like that.
May you like
Months passed.
The case became slower and less dramatic.
