Chương 12
Marcus signed the agreement.
News broke before the week ended.
Photographs from Lincoln Park surfaced online: Marcus kneeling before two identical girls, one in a dirty dress and his black jacket. Reporters gathered outside the courthouse, the Blackwell residence, Lily’s school, and Dr. Shah’s clinic. Headlines called Emma a secret daughter, a hidden heir, a kidnapped twin, and evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
None of the headlines called her a hungry child who had spent a day beneath an oak tree wondering whether her father would recognize her.
Marcus’s legitimate companies lost contracts. Two banks froze accounts pending review. Employees received subpoenas. Men who had once competed to sit near him in restaurants stopped answering calls.
Others called too often, eager to discover whether he had named them.
Leon moved into the residence full-time. Dominic’s wife asked him to quit. He did.
“I don’t blame him,” Marcus said.
Leon drank coffee at the kitchen counter.
“You would have last month.”
“Last month I had fewer daughters.”
“That is not a moral system.”
“No.”
Leon looked at him over the cup.
“You’re getting irritating.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Emma’s emergency placement became the subject of a closed family-court hearing. The state argued that Marcus’s cooperation did not eliminate safety concerns. Carla recommended temporary placement with Marcus under continuous supervision, therapy, medical monitoring, and restrictions on contact with named associates.
Karen petitioned for visitation.
Marcus opposed it.
Emma stopped speaking to him for two days.
She communicated with Lily, Dr. Shah, Owen, and the new therapist, but when Marcus entered a room, she lowered her eyes and left.
On the third evening, he found her beneath the kitchen table with Buttons, who had returned from evidence processing in a new clear storage bag. Emma had refused to remove him until someone assured her the chemicals used in testing were safe.
Marcus sat on the floor several feet away.
The sticking drawer hung open above his shoulder. Lily had been correct. His attempt to repair it had warped the track.
Emma stroked the plastic bag.
“You said Aunt Karen could come home.”
“I said I would bring her home alive.”
“She doesn’t have a home.”
“She has a lawyer and temporary housing.”
“That’s not a home.”
“No.”
Emma looked at him.
“You hate her.”
“I’m angry with her.”
“You hate her.”
Marcus rested his arms on his knees.
“She lied to me.”
“So did Mommy.”
The words struck harder because Emma said them without cruelty.
Marcus looked toward the garden doors. Rain ran down the glass.
“Yes.”
“Do you hate Mommy?”
“No.”
“Because she’s dead?”
“Because I loved her.”
Emma considered that.
“Aunt Karen loved me.”
“I believe she did.”
“She made pancakes shaped like moons.”
Marcus waited.
“She burned one side,” Emma added.
“Your mother burned eggs.”
“Lily says she didn’t.”
“Lily was four when Grace died. She has edited several memories.”
Emma almost smiled.
Marcus leaned his head against the cabinet.
“Karen kept you safe at times. She also kept you from me when there may have been chances to tell the truth. I don’t know how to hold both things yet.”
Emma rubbed the bear’s plastic-covered ear.
“Can she visit?”
Marcus looked at her hollow cheeks, fuller now but still too thin. He wanted to say no. He wanted Karen punished somewhere Emma could not see. He wanted the six stolen years returned in a form he could understand.
“They’ll arrange supervised visits,” he said.
Emma’s shoulders loosened.
“You can be there.”
“I probably will be.”
“She says rude things.”
“I remember.”
“You might be rude back.”
“I probably will be.”
This time Emma smiled.
The first supervised visit took place in a child welfare office with beige walls, plastic toys, and a clock that ticked too loudly.
Karen entered wearing a loose sweater over her healing ribs. Emma ran to her, then stopped halfway, anger arriving before relief could finish.
“You left me.”
Karen’s face folded.
“I did.”
“You said you’d come back before lunch.”
“I know.”
“There were bugs.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You always say not to sit where there are bugs.”
“I know.”
Emma hit her twice in the stomach with small fists. Karen winced but did not stop her. The supervisor moved forward. Emma stopped on her own.
Then she pressed her face against Karen’s sweater.
Karen held her carefully.
Marcus watched through a window in the door. Lily stood beside him.
“Why don’t you go in?” she asked.
“Because this is Emma’s visit.”
“You’re scared of Aunt Karen.”
“I am not.”
Lily looked up at him.
Marcus sighed.
“I dislike rooms where people tell the truth unpredictably.”
“That means scared.”
“It means cautious.”
“It means scared with a suit.”
Inside, Karen sat on the floor while Emma showed her Buttons’s repaired seam. They talked about the motel, a lost red mitten, and a stray cat Karen had fed behind a gas station in Wisconsin. Ordinary memories passed between them, proof of a life Marcus had not witnessed.
Jealousy came so quickly he nearly mistook it for anger.
Lily slipped her hand into his.
“She knows things about Emma.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll know things too.”
Marcus looked down.
Grace had once accused Lily of being emotionally nosy. Lily had replied that other people were emotionally slow.
Karen eventually asked to see him.
They met in the same room after the girls left with Owen.
For several minutes, neither sat.
Karen broke first.
“You look older.”
“You look worse.”
“There he is.”
Marcus took the chair farthest from her.
“Why the park?”
“Grace told me you took Lily there on Mondays.”
“How did you know we still went?”
“I watched twice.”
Leon’s security review had found no surveillance.
Marcus’s expression changed.
Karen saw it.
“Relax. I wore a hat and stood near mothers with strollers. Your men look for weapons, not tired women.”
“You could have approached me.”
May you like
“I had Emma with me once. You were twenty feet away. Adrian was beside you.”
Marcus remembered Adrian carrying Lily’s lemonade while taking a call.
