Chương 7
Claire stared at the photograph.
“You were switched too.”
“Apparently.”
“And Daniel found out.”
“Years ago.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-one years.”
Claire looked at him.
“You were fourteen.”
“Yes.”
“He knew when you were fourteen that you were his son?”
“Yes.”
“And he never told you.”
Ethan’s laugh had no humor left in it.
“He was good at deciding what people could survive.”
Claire leaned back.
For the first time, she saw something in Ethan that did not make her want to turn away.
Not innocence.
He had forfeited that seven years earlier.
But injury.
Daniel had stolen Ethan’s history before Ethan helped Daniel steal Noah’s.
One did not excuse the other.
They existed together.
“What’s Joan Mercer’s son’s name?”
Ethan looked at the folder.
“Andrew.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“Is Margaret going to tell him?”
Ethan looked toward the front window.
“She hasn’t decided.”
Claire felt anger rise so quickly it cleared her mind.
“Of course.”
Ethan looked back.
“What?”
“She still thinks deciding belongs to her.”
He said nothing.
Claire pushed the box toward him.
“Tell her she doesn’t get another year.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if Andrew is alive, he gets the truth.”
Ethan’s expression tightened.
“It’s not that simple.”
“No. It’s horrible. That’s different.”
“He has a family. He has a life.”
“So did Rebecca.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“It’s exactly what you mean.”
Ethan stood.
Claire stood too.
“You think truth belongs to whoever can handle it best,” she said. “That’s the disease in this family.”
“Claire, people can get hurt.”
“People are already hurt.”
“Andrew could lose his mother.”
“Joan is still his mother.”
Ethan looked at her.
Claire heard her own words.
They stopped both of them.
Joan is still his mother.
Rebecca is Noah’s biological mother.
Claire is still Noah’s mother.
Margaret raised Ethan.
Motherhood had become a word with too many rooms.
Ethan sat again.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to call her now.”
“Margaret?”
He nodded.
“What did you call her last month?”
“Mom.”
“Then maybe start there.”
His eyes went wet.
He looked away.
Claire let him.
Margaret came to Claire’s house two nights later.
She no longer wore pearls.
Claire noticed immediately and disliked herself for noticing.
Margaret stood in the living room while Claire folded Noah’s laundry on the couch.
“You could sit,” Claire said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re making me tired.”
Margaret sat.
Claire folded a dinosaur T-shirt.
Margaret watched.
“I used to fold Ethan’s clothes like that.”
Claire kept folding.
“Then he became twelve and apparently believed drawers were a conspiracy.”
Claire almost smiled.
Margaret did not.
“I spoke to Andrew Mercer.”
Claire stopped.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“You told him?”
“Yes.”
Claire set the shirt down.
“How did he take it?”
“Badly.”
The answer was so plain that Claire looked at her.
Margaret’s face was swollen around the eyes.
“He thought I was attempting some kind of fraud. Then he called Joan. She cried. Then he told me never to contact him again.”
“I’m sorry.”
Margaret shook her head.
“Don’t be.”
Claire resumed folding.
After a moment she asked, “Why did you help Daniel?”
Margaret looked at the pile of children’s clothes.
“You mean with Noah.”
“Yes.”
“I could tell you I thought you were medically fragile.”
“You did.”
“I could tell you Daniel was threatening everyone in the room.”
“He was.”
“I could tell you the hospital administrator was frightened of him, and the nurse was frightened of losing her license, and Ethan had spent his whole adult life trying to prove himself to Daniel.”
“All true.”
“Yes.”
Claire folded a pair of socks together.
“But?”
Margaret rubbed her thumb over the place on her earlobe where a pearl usually rested.
“But I also believed Daniel.”
“About what?”
“That he was different from ordinary people.”
Claire looked up.
Margaret’s mouth twisted with disgust, mostly at herself.
“Our father raised us that way. Problems were obstacles for other families. Consequences were things that happened when people lacked money or discipline. Daniel took it further than I ever did, but I understood the language.”
“And Rebecca?”
“I made her into an abstraction.”
Claire’s hands stopped.
Margaret continued.
“She was a woman I didn’t know. You were in front of me. Daniel was in front of me. A dead infant was in front of me. A living infant was in front of me. So I told myself I was solving the problem I could see.”
“You stole her child.”
“Yes.”
“You let her bury mine.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me thank you for helping me become a mother.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Claire threw the socks into the basket.
“I need you to stop agreeing with me.”
Margaret opened her eyes.
“I don’t know what else to do.”
“Fight. Defend yourself. Tell me Daniel made you. Tell me you loved Noah. Tell me you checked on Rebecca every year. Give me something I can hate cleanly.”
Margaret’s face tightened.
“I did love Noah.”
Claire looked away.
“There.”
“What?”
“That helps.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“I know.”
For several minutes they sat without speaking.
Noah’s dryer thumped in the laundry room because one of his sneakers had somehow made it into the load.
Claire had told him three times not to put shoes in the hamper.
The ridiculous noise continued.
Margaret looked toward the hallway.
“Is that a shoe?”
“Yes.”
“Daniel used to put ski gloves in the dryer.”
“I know.”
“They shrank.”
“He blamed the dryer.”
Margaret laughed once.
Claire did not want to laugh.
She did anyway.
The sound ended quickly.
Margaret covered her mouth.
Claire stared at the floor.
This was how grief betrayed you.
It let someone be monstrous and familiar in the same minute.
The criminal investigation began quietly.
Claire gave a formal statement.
So did Rebecca.
Ethan turned over the hidden messages, storage records, and names of people involved.
Margaret retained criminal counsel and eventually gave investigators a statement as well.
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The retired nurse, Carol Madsen, was found in Arizona.
She denied changing wristbands.
