Part 8
“I was still using that,” Margaret said.
“No, you were bathing in it.”
Raymond called at one with next steps. There would be an emergency hearing within seventy-two hours. Ava’s legal mother was listed as Annalise Porter on the birth certificate. Father unknown. Drew was not on the birth certificate. The hospital had contacted Annalise through the rehab facility where she was undergoing treatment. Whether she could participate was unclear. Claire and Drew were under investigation for endangerment. Margaret’s placement was temporary and fragile.
Fragile became the word of the day. Ava’s neck, the legal arrangement, Margaret’s knee, Drew’s marriage, Claire’s grip on public sympathy, the old story of Margaret’s family as basically decent people who had suffered enough.
In the afternoon, Louisa drove Margaret back to the house with Raymond following to supervise retrieval of essentials. Snow had begun in thin, indecisive flakes. Margaret sat in the passenger seat and held Ava’s empty car seat base instructions while Louisa complained about modern baby equipment requiring “an engineering degree and three lies.”
The house on Maple Thorn Road looked exactly the same.
That offended Margaret.
The porch garland still sagged on the left because Drew had promised to fix it and not fixed it. A plastic reindeer stood near the walkway with one antler missing. The front window glowed with warm lamplight. A person passing by would see comfort, not the attic above it.
Officer Patel met them at the door. Drew was inside. Claire had gone to her sister’s. Margaret felt no relief at either fact.
“Ten minutes,” Raymond said. “Baby stays in the car with Ms. Berman.”
Louisa saluted. “Nobody trusts me with crime scenes anymore.”
“It isn’t officially a crime scene,” Officer Patel said.
Louisa looked at the house. “The house has aspirations.”
Inside, the smell of the chicken soup hit Margaret first. It had been refrigerated. Someone had put it away. The kitchen counters were clean. Her phone sat beside the sink, fully charged. For one absurd moment she imagined Drew doing small helpful things after ruining large sacred ones, as if wiping counters might reduce the moral balance.
Drew stood near the table. He had not shaved. His hair stuck up at the back. When he saw Margaret, his face crumpled with relief she resented.
“Mom.”
Officer Patel moved slightly, not between them, but enough.
Margaret picked up her phone. Seventeen missed calls. Six from Drew. Four from unknown numbers. Three from Claire’s sister. One from the pediatrician’s office. Three from numbers she did not recognize and did not want to.
“I need clothes,” Margaret said.
“I packed some,” Drew said quickly. He gestured toward a duffel near the back door. “Warm things. Your medications. The blue sweater you like.”
This nearly undid her. Not because it was kind. Because it was accurate. He knew the blue sweater. He knew she hated wool against her neck. He knew she kept ibuprofen in the left drawer and butterscotch candies in the right. Knowledge and love were not the same, but they often wore each other’s coats.
“Thank you,” she said.
He flinched at the politeness.
Raymond checked the duffel. Margaret hated that this was necessary and more hated that it was wise.
“I didn’t put anything weird in there,” Drew said.
“Nobody said you did,” Officer Patel replied.
Drew’s face reddened. “Everyone is acting like I’m—”
“A man who locked his mother and a newborn in an attic?” Margaret asked.
He shut his mouth.
She walked past him toward the converted garage suite. Her rooms looked untouched: bed unmade, crossword half-filled on the nightstand, slippers angled away from each other as if they had quarreled. On the dresser was a photograph of Drew at twelve holding a fish he had not caught but claimed long enough for the picture. Beside it, Anna at six wearing red rain boots and a tutu over jeans, scowling because Margaret had told her she could not bring a worm into the grocery store.
Margaret picked up the frame and set it face down.
Then she picked it up again and held it to her chest.
Drew appeared in the doorway. “I didn’t know Claire was going to lock it.”
Margaret did not turn. “You pulled the door.”
“I panicked.”
“Yes.”
“I thought if we had a minute, I could make her calm down.”
“You had a minute after the first second.”
He said nothing.
She opened a drawer and took socks, underwear, a packet of old letters she did not need and could not leave. “Who is Annalise?”
“She was a dispatcher at the logistics center. She had Ava at County General. She called me because she didn’t have anyone else.”
“Why you?”
Drew leaned against the door frame, then straightened when Officer Patel looked at him. “Because I had helped before.”
“With money?”
“Some.”
“With promises?”
His face tightened. “I never promised—”
“Don’t answer like a defendant. Answer like my son if there’s any left.”
The words struck them both. Margaret almost apologized. She did not.
Drew looked at the floor. “I told her if she got clean, I’d help her find a place. Claire saw messages and thought— She had reason to think things. Not everything she thought, but enough.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
He looked toward the hallway, where Raymond stood out of sight but not out of hearing.
“Yes,” Drew said.
Margaret closed the drawer.
“Once,” he added, then seemed ashamed of the smallness. “Twice. I don’t know why I said once.”
Because once sounded like a mistake and twice sounded like a decision. Margaret knew. Everyone knew.
“Is Ava yours?”
“I took the test. I couldn’t open it.”
“Where is it?”
“In my email.”
She turned then. “Open it.”
His face changed. Fear first. Then resistance. Then anger. All the little boys inside him lining up to refuse medicine.
“Now?” he asked.
May you like
“No, Drew. In spring when the tulips make it festive.”
Officer Patel coughed once into her hand. It may have been a laugh. Margaret did not look.
