Chương 4
Not because he wanted to.
Because his knees seemed to fail.
For several seconds he stared at nothing.
Then he said, “Why?”
Martha pulled a tissue from her coat pocket, found it soaked, and put it back.
“I was thirty-six. My first marriage had already ended badly. My mother was sick. You were leaving every six months. We weren’t married. We’d been fighting for most of the pregnancy, and every conversation ended with you telling me what would happen after you got promoted.”
“I offered to leave the Army.”
“You offered once.”
“I meant it.”
“I didn’t believe you.”
Richard looked at her as if the train itself had become irrelevant.
“So you told me my daughter was dead.”
Martha’s mouth tightened.
“I thought I was giving her a stable life.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
Martha stared at her bare feet.
“I signed a closed adoption.”
Lena’s breathing changed.
Martha heard it.
“I didn’t choose the family personally. The agency did. I was told they were married, financially secure, no other children. I was told they lived in Ohio.”
“Michigan,” Lena said.
Martha looked up.
“My parents lived in Michigan.”
Richard whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
Lena’s voice hardened.
“Do not apologize to me yet.”
Martha did not.
That was the first thing she did right.
Richard pushed away from the table and walked to the window.
His reflection moved over black forests and rain.
“You let me bury an empty coffin in my head for twenty-eight years.”
“There was no coffin.”
“That makes it worse.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Lena held the bracelet in her bandaged hand.
“Where does Evelyn fit?”
Martha looked at Richard.
He did not turn around.
“Martha.”
She closed her eyes.
“Evelyn found me.”
Richard faced her.
“When?”
“Two years before she died.”
He stared at her.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“What did she know?”
“Enough.”
The cabinet seemed to become louder simply by existing.
Lena looked at it.
“What’s in there?”
Martha whispered, “Her letter.”
Richard’s attention snapped to her.
“You’ve seen it?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because she told me she was writing one.”
The conductor arrived nine minutes later.
His name was Samuel Ortiz, and he looked as though the mountain had already taken everything he had available for the evening. His tie was loose. His silver hair stuck to his forehead. He listened while Lena explained that personal documents belonging to her husband were stored in the cabinet and that she needed access.
Ortiz shook his head.
“I can only release a secured item to the person who deposited it.”
Richard said, “The documents concern me.”
“I understand.”
“And her.”
“I understand that too.”
“Then open it.”
Ortiz looked at Richard’s uniform.
“I’ve already had one gentleman tonight explain his résumé to me while asking me to ignore procedure. It didn’t improve my mood.”
Martha looked down to hide another inappropriate smile.
Richard took a breath.
“What do you need?”
“Mr. Brooks’s permission.”
Lena said, “Get him.”
Ortiz radioed the attendant.
Ethan returned five minutes later accompanied by Denise.
He stayed near the door.
Lena’s phone had been retrieved and placed on the table in front of her.
Ethan looked at the cabinet.
Then at Lena.
“You want the file.”
“I want everything you brought.”
He nodded.
Ortiz unlocked the cabinet after Ethan signed a release on a tablet.
Inside was a black document envelope sealed with two strips of tamper tape.
Lena looked at Ethan.
“You sealed it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to open it again.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does to me.”
Ortiz placed the envelope on the table.
Ethan did not sit.
Lena broke the seals.
Inside were photocopies of adoption-agency correspondence, a cemetery relocation receipt, three photographs, two laboratory reports, and a white envelope yellowed at the edges.
Richard recognized the handwriting on the front before Lena turned it toward him.
His name was written there.
Richard Hale.
Evelyn’s handwriting.
He sat.
Ethan whispered, “I never opened that one.”
Richard looked up.
“You opened everything else.”
“Yes.”
“But not this.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Ethan’s jaw worked.
“Because it wasn’t mine.”
Lena almost laughed.
The distinction was grotesque considering everything else he had done.
Richard seemed to think so too.
“You took biological samples from people without telling them.”
Ethan looked at him.
“You know about that?”
Lena turned.
“What biological samples?”
Nobody answered.
Her eyes moved to the laboratory report.
She picked it up.
Two coded sample numbers.
A kinship estimate.
Probability of parent-child relationship: greater than 99.9 percent.
The paper shook once in her hand.
She looked at Ethan.
“What did you use?”
He did not answer quickly enough.
“What did you take from me?”
“A toothbrush.”
Lena stared at him.
“And Richard?”
Ethan’s face reddened.
“A razor from his guest bathroom.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Lena put the report down very carefully.
“You stole my DNA.”
“I needed to know before I brought this to you.”
“You brought it to me tonight.”
“I was going to.”
“After eleven months.”
“I found the bracelet seven months ago.”
“Seven.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve known for seven months.”
“I suspected.”
“You tested us.”
“Yes.”
“You got this result.”
“Six weeks ago.”
“And then you slept next to me every night.”
His voice broke slightly.
“Yes.”
Lena looked at the bruise around her wrist.
That hurt more than she expected.
Ethan stepped forward without realizing it.
Denise said, “Sir.”
He stopped.
Lena picked up the cemetery receipt.
Evelyn Hale’s remains had been relocated in January because a retaining wall at a hillside cemetery outside Colorado Springs had failed after winter erosion. Family representatives had been invited to attend the transfer.
Ethan had signed.
Richard had not.
“I told you not to go,” Richard said.
Ethan looked at him.
“You said you couldn’t.”
“I said I couldn’t watch them open her grave.”
“So I went.”
His voice was sharper now.
May you like
For the first time that evening, anger entered it.
“She was my mother too.”
