Part 8
At a red light, Nora asked, “Do you live in a hotel?”
Clara turned around. “No.”
“Your picture looked like a hotel.”
“That was my apartment.”
Nora considered this. “It looks uncomfortable.”
Elena murmured, “Nora.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to evaluate her furniture.”
“It was all white.”
Clara looked forward again. “It is uncomfortable.”
The driver’s eyes flicked toward the rearview mirror.
Clara almost laughed.
Elena’s apartment was on the third floor of a brick building in Albany Park. The entryway smelled faintly of cumin, floor wax, and someone’s laundry detergent. Nora pulled the outer door hard until the lock caught, proving Elena’s description accurate.
Clara carried the file box up three flights while Elena handled the suitcase. Nora ran ahead, then waited at each landing as though remembering she should not leave them.
The apartment was narrow and lived-in. A bicycle hung from two hooks near the kitchen. Restaurant invoices covered one end of the dining table. A chipped bowl held keys, receipts, and three cough drops. There were plants in the windows, most alive.
Nora removed her sneakers at the door.
Clara followed.
Elena noticed the sparkling heels lined beside Nora’s dark shoes and said, “You don’t have to.”
“It seems wise.”
“You might step on something.”
“What?”
“Old floorboards. Nora’s craft projects. My dignity.”
Clara looked at the apartment again. “I’ll risk it.”
Elena made coffee. Nora changed into a gray sweatshirt without being asked. Clara sat at the dining table with the box in front of her and the silver suitcase against the wall.
On the refrigerator were photographs of Nora at different ages. Nora missing two teeth. Nora holding a library certificate. Nora beside a hospital bed, leaning against a woman with cropped blonde hair.
Clara stood.
The photograph had been taken less than a year earlier. Julia wore a knit cap and a loose blue sweater. She was thin, but not yet skeletal. Her hand rested on Nora’s shoulder. Her smile was uneven.
Clara moved closer.
“You can take it down,” Nora said from the doorway.
“I don’t want to.”
“I mean you can hold it.”
Nora lifted the magnet and handed Clara the photograph.
The paper was warm from the refrigerator motor.
Clara traced the edge, not touching Julia’s face.
“She looks like my mother,” she said.
Nora leaned against the counter. “She didn’t like when people said that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t say it to her.”
Clara looked at the child. “You correct people a lot.”
“People say things wrong a lot.”
Elena set down three mugs and a glass of milk. “She comes by it honestly.”
Clara returned to the table.
For the next two hours, they inventoried the portfolio.
Elena created a spreadsheet on her laptop. Clara read each item aloud. Nora placed small numbered stickers on clear sleeves.
Martin had organized some records by alias, others by year, and several by legal purpose. There were birth certificates for Julia Mercer and Anna Hart, school transcripts, immigration-style identity declarations despite no immigration matter, travel affidavits, banking documents, trust agreements, medical authorizations, and letters.
The repeated childhood photograph appeared in seven files.
“Why use the same picture?” Nora asked.
Elena said, “Maybe to prove Anna and Julia were connected.”
Clara examined the backs. Each had a different handwritten notation: date, location, names, relationship.
“It may have been the only childhood photograph Julia kept,” she said.
Nora looked surprised. “She had a box.”
“Of photographs?”
“Mostly you.”
Clara stopped labeling.
“Where is it?”
“In the closet.”
Nora went to retrieve it.
Elena waited until she was out of the room. “Before you see more, I need to know what you plan to do.”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is honest, but it isn’t enough.”
Clara folded her hands. “What are you afraid I’ll do?”
“Take over.”
The words were direct without being hostile.
Clara glanced toward the hallway. “She’s my niece.”
“She learned that this morning in the same way you learned she existed.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t. Not yet.”
Clara almost reacted defensively. She felt the answer form: I lost my sister. I am not the threat here.
She let it go.
Elena continued. “Nora’s mother died four months ago. She has been sleeping in my apartment, going to school, meeting with a court counselor, and pretending she does not listen when adults discuss where she might live. She found those files because Martin removed them from a box that had been kept in her room. Then she saw your picture online. That does not mean she is ready for a new family to arrive and make decisions.”
“I’m not trying to take her from you.”
“Good.”
“But the court may ask about relatives.”
“It will.”
“And Martin will tell them about the trust.”
“He already has.”
“What do you want?”
Elena leaned back. The chair creaked. “I want her to stay in her school. I want her to stop thinking she has to solve adult disasters before breakfast. I want enough money to fix the walk-in refrigerator at my restaurant without wondering whether a judge will call that financial instability. I want Anna alive.”
The last sentence came without a change in volume.
Clara looked down.
“I can’t help with the last one.”
“No.”
“I can help with the refrigerator.”
Elena gave her a tired look.
“Sorry,” Clara said.
Nora returned carrying a faded shoebox.
She placed it in front of Clara.
Inside were photographs arranged in no order. Clara at four, asleep with a stuffed rabbit under her chin. Clara on a bicycle. Clara standing beside Julia at a school fair. Their mother in the background of a lake photograph, one hand raised against the camera. Their father at a picnic table, smiling as though the world had never resisted him.
There were also newspaper clippings.
MERCER DAUGHTER STILL MISSING.
FAMILY OFFERS REWARD.
ONE YEAR LATER, NO ANSWERS.
Julia had kept them.
May you like
On one clipping, she had written, I am at 814 Grove Street. Martin knows.
Clara read it twice.
