Chương 12
That stopped her.
Daniel leaned against the counter, arms folded.
“Ask whether the amendment has a filing date,” he said.
Noah heard him.
“September 2003.”
Mara did the math.
“You were twelve.”
“Yep.”
“Why would Dad change your birth record when you were twelve?”
“That is one of several questions I’ve been asking myself since I was twenty-three.”
Mara looked toward the window.
Elaine was sitting in her car with both hands resting on the steering wheel.
She was not looking at the house.
“Did you ever ask Dad directly?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That the original record had a clerical error.”
“Eleven months?”
“Exactly.”
“And you accepted that?”
“No.”
Noah’s voice hardened.
“I was twenty-three, broke, living with two guys who stored bicycles in the shower, and Dad had just paid six thousand dollars to keep me from defaulting on my student loans.”
Mara had not known that.
“Dad gave you six thousand dollars?”
“Loaned.”
“Did you pay him back?”
“That’s what you’re focusing on?”
“No.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“No.”
“I paid him back.”
Daniel made a skeptical sound.
“Eventually,” Noah added.
That was so thoroughly Noah that Mara felt a painful rush of affection.
“What did Dad tell you to stop looking into last week?”
“The amendment.”
“After twelve years?”
“I requested the original hospital file again.”
“Why now?”
Noah was silent.
Thomas said something.
Noah snapped, “I can answer my own sister.”
Mara’s patience thinned.
“Then answer.”
“Because Sophie’s pregnant.”
The words took several seconds to settle.
Mara looked at Daniel.
His eyebrows rose.
Outside, Elaine remained motionless in the car.
“You’re going to be a father?”
“If everything goes okay.”
“How far along?”
“Eleven weeks.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“We were waiting.”
Mara sat down.
The morning had apparently developed an unlimited capacity for information.
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“You idiot.”
“I know.”
She laughed once despite herself.
Noah did too, and for three seconds they were only brother and sister again.
Then he said, “Her OB asked about family medical history.”
Mara’s smile disappeared.
“I realized I don’t know whether mine is real.”
“So you requested the records.”
“Yes.”
“And Dad found out?”
“I asked him for the name of the pediatrician I had before Dr. Moss.”
Mara remembered Dr. Moss, who had smelled of peppermint and kept a human skeleton in his office wearing a Baltimore Orioles cap.
“Dad got weird.”
“Weirder than usual?”
“He told me old records wouldn’t tell me anything useful.”
“So you kept digging.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Thomas about Sophie?”
“No.”
Mara looked at Daniel.
“Then how did Thomas know to call you?”
Noah did not answer.
Mara’s skin prickled.
“Noah.”
“I didn’t give Thomas my number.”
Thomas’s voice became audible in the background.
“Tell her.”
Noah muttered something under his breath.
Then he said, “Dad gave it to him.”
Mara stood.
“What?”
“Thomas says Dad called him four days ago.”
Daniel straightened.
“Why?”
“To ask whether he still had Levin’s photograph.”
Mara stared through the window at Elaine.
“So Dad knew Thomas had it.”
“Apparently.”
“Did Thomas tell him?”
“Yes.”
“And then he called you.”
“Last night.”
“Why?”
“Because after Dad called, Thomas went through the rest of Levin’s things.”
“What things?”
“A box.”
Mara closed her eyes.
“Of course there’s a box.”
Noah almost laughed.
“Yeah.”
“What’s in it?”
“Mostly junk.”
“Define junk.”
“Old medical association newsletters, Christmas cards, a dead calculator, receipts, handwritten notes that don’t mean anything to us.”
“Us?”
“Thomas and me.”
The phrase bothered her.
They had known each other for less than an hour, yet already Noah had formed an us with him.
Mara hated the jealousy that followed.
“Anything else?”
“One sealed envelope.”
“Addressed to who?”
Noah hesitated.
“Elaine Ellison.”
Mara looked outside.
Her mother was no longer in the car.
“Where’s Mom?”
Daniel turned toward the driveway.
The driver’s door stood open.
Elaine was gone.
Mara crossed the kitchen and looked toward the street.
Nothing.
She tried her mother’s phone.
It rang from the purse sitting on the front passenger seat.
“She left her phone.”
Daniel was already reaching for his keys.
“Maybe she went around back.”
Mara opened the front door.
The yard was empty.
Then she saw that Richard’s old gardening shoes, which Elaine had been wearing when they left her house because she had not bothered changing, had left faint dirt marks across the walkway.
The marks led toward the side gate.
“Mom?”
No answer.
Mara followed them.
The gate stood open.
Beyond it, the narrow path between the houses ended at the next street.
Elaine was not there.
“Mara,” Noah said through the phone.
She had forgotten he was still connected.
“Hold on.”
“Thomas says we should open the envelope.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s addressed to Mom.”
“She’s not here.”
“That doesn’t make it yours.”
“Mara, this stopped being about privacy around the third altered birth certificate.”
“There is one altered birth certificate.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Don’t open it.”
Noah went quiet.
Then Thomas’s voice came closer.
“Mara.”
She stopped walking.
It was strange hearing his voice on speaker in her own yard.
“What?”
“I need you to know something before Noah opens this.”
“He isn’t opening it.”
“I am,” Noah said.
“Noah.”
Paper tore.
Mara closed her eyes.
“You’re an ass.”
“Family trait.”
Paper unfolded.
Noah stopped talking.
Mara waited.
“What does it say?”
Nothing.
“Noah?”
Thomas said his name.
Still nothing.
Mara’s stomach tightened.
“Read it.”
Noah finally spoke.
“It’s not a letter.”
“What is it?”
“A lab report.”
Daniel came through the gate behind Mara.
“What kind?”
Noah breathed in.
“Blood typing.”
Mara frowned.
“Whose?”
“Baby Boy Ellison.”
The world seemed to narrow.
“What date?”
“April twenty-first, 1990.”
Elaine’s first son.
The one they had been told died.
“What else?”
“There’s a handwritten note.”
“Read it.”
Noah’s voice shook.
“AB positive.”
Mara waited.
“That’s it?”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“Underneath it says, ‘Impossible with alleged parents.’”
May you like
Daniel took the phone from Mara.
“Blood type alone can exclude some biological relationships, depending on the parents’ types, but don’t make conclusions from an old handwritten note.”
