The first thing I wanted was Margaret Mercer’s telephone number.
The second thing I wanted was twenty-four hours before anyone expected me to use it.
Both impulses arrived at the same time.
Agent Morris understood.
“She lives about two hours from here,” she said. “The address appears current. We’re confirming contact information now.”
“Does she know about me?”
“We haven’t contacted her yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because once we do, we cannot undo it.”
That answer irritated me because it was sensible.
I walked to the attic window and looked down at rainwater moving through Mom’s gutters.
“She tried to find me.”
“She appears to have contacted Maplewood repeatedly.”
“That’s not the same as trying to find me later.”
“No.”
“Maybe she stopped.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe she didn’t.”
“Also possible.”
Every answer contained another branch.
I hated branches.
I wanted one straight road marked THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED.
Agent Morris explained that investigators would likely contact Margaret regardless because she was relevant to the record review, but they would allow me some control over how personal contact happened.
“I want to be there,” I said.
“When we speak to her?”
“Yes.”
Michael looked at me.
“You sure?”
“No.”
That had become my most truthful answer.
Agent Morris arranged for the initial call that afternoon after Mom was out of surgery.
I almost protested.
Then I remembered where Mom was.
The hospital.
Her knee.
For more than an hour I had forgotten that she was under anesthesia while I was standing in an attic reconstructing the first two years of my life.
We returned to the hospital shortly before the surgeon came out.
He found me in the waiting room and immediately smiled.
“Everything went well.”
The relief was clean and uncomplicated, which made it almost startling.
“No problems?”
“None. She’ll be in recovery for a while. We’ll get you back when she’s ready.”
“Thank you.”
He continued speaking about the replacement, pain management, and rehabilitation. I listened, because my mother would absolutely quiz me later.
After he left, Michael sat beside me.
“You going to tell her about Margaret today?”
“Yes.”
“Before or after the pain medication?”
I looked at him.
“That sounds unethical.”
“I’m not suggesting manipulation.”
“You are definitely suggesting manipulation.”
“I’m suggesting timing.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
When I finally saw Mom, she looked smaller in the hospital bed than she had before surgery. Her face was puffy from fluids. A blanket covered her from chest to ankles, and a clear line disappeared beneath the fabric near her operated leg.
She blinked when I entered.
“Did they keep the right knee?”
I pulled the chair closer.
“They considered replacing your left one for fun.”
Her eyes narrowed weakly.
“Don’t joke about medical errors.”
“You’re definitely fine.”
Michael kissed her forehead.
She looked at him.
“Why are you here?”
“Apparently your family enjoys having major revelations before lunch.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“Emma called you.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head.
“You had surgery. You’re allowed to stop apologizing for ten minutes.”
Mom opened one eye.
“Bossy.”
“I learned from Emma.”
“I learned from you,” I said.
She managed a tired smile.
Then she saw my face more clearly.
“What happened?”
No anesthesia in the world could suppress her ability to read me.
“We opened the trunk.”
Her expression sharpened.
“You found the records?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“There was a file on me.”
Mom stared at me.
I continued carefully.
“Alicia and Daniel had relatives listed.”
She nodded once.
“I knew that from the original intake.”
“One was Margaret Mercer. Daniel’s sister.”
Recognition crossed her face.
“You remember her.”
“Yes.”
My heartbeat picked up.
“What do you remember?”
“She called.”
“How many times?”
“Several.”
“You spoke to her?”
“Once.”
That was not in the version she had given me earlier.
I sat straighter.
“You spoke to my biological aunt.”
Mom closed her eyes briefly.
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She was asking what was happening with you.”
“Did she want custody?”
“At the time, yes.”
The room seemed to contract.
“And then?”
“I was told the court had determined she wasn’t pursuing it.”
“Who told you?”
“Maplewood administration.”
“Did you verify it?”
Mom looked stricken.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I was a staff nurse. Custody decisions weren’t mine to investigate.”
“You were already suspicious of the records.”
“Not yet. Not fully.”
I stood.
“Did you know she was trying to see me?”
“Yes.”
“Did she?”
“Once.”
“Did you meet her?”
“No.”
“Did I?”
“I don’t know.”
My voice rose.
“How do you not know?”
“Because Maplewood controlled visitation scheduling. Nurses weren’t always present.”
I took a step away.
Mom watched me.
“I never lied to you about relatives being gone when we adopted you, Emma. I believed what the court file showed.”
“The court file that might have been based on Maplewood’s false information.”
“Yes.”
She sounded miserable.
Michael stood near the window, saying nothing.
I had asked him once, years earlier, why he became quiet during arguments instead of choosing sides. He said silence was sometimes the only way to keep two hurt people from recruiting a witness.
Mom reached toward me.
“What did you find?”
I told her.
The phone calls.
The contact notes.
The internal memo.
The typed statement claiming Margaret had withdrawn.
The photograph.
Then I said, “She’s alive.”
Mom’s hand stopped.
“What?”
“Margaret.”
Her eyes widened.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, her entire face changed.
Not fear.
Relief.
“Oh, thank God.”
I had not expected that.
“You’re happy.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if she’s alive, you can ask her.”
Something in me eased.
“You really want me to?”
“Yes.”
“No hesitation?”
“None.”
Mom’s voice was weak from surgery but certain.
“She may be angry.”
“At me?”
“At everyone.”
“She may hate you.”
“I might deserve some of it.”
“You didn’t falsify the records.”
“No. But I benefited from them.”
That was a harder answer than I expected.
“You didn’t know.”
“Not enough.”
She looked toward the blanket.
“I loved you so much that sometimes I accepted answers too easily because they led where I wanted them to lead.”
I sat back down.
“That’s the part I’m trying to understand.”
“So am I.”
Agent Morris arrived shortly after three.
She had Margaret’s phone number.
“She agreed to speak with us.”
“You already contacted her?”
“Only to confirm identity and ask whether she would participate in a call concerning Maplewood House.”
“Did you say my name?”
“No.”
My mouth went dry.
“So she doesn’t know?”
“Not yet.”
We moved to a small consultation room down the hall. Michael stayed with Mom at her insistence.
“You go,” she told me. “Then come back and tell me everything.”
“What if it goes badly?”
“Then come back and tell me everything.”
I carried Alicia’s letter.
Agent Morris placed her phone on the table and initiated the call.
It rang twice.
A woman answered.
“Hello?”
Her voice was older than Mom’s but strong.
Agent Morris introduced herself and confirmed Margaret’s identity.
“Yes,” Margaret said. “You told me this was about Maplewood.”
“It is.”
A pause.
“I’ve been waiting forty years for someone to say that place’s name like it mattered.”
I looked at Morris.
She continued.
“Ms. Mercer, I have someone here who would like to speak with you.”
“Who?”
Morris nodded to me.
My throat tightened.
“Margaret?”
Silence.
“Yes?”
“My name is Emma Morgan.”
Nothing.
Then I added, “I was born Emma Alicia Mercer.”
The silence on the phone became absolute.
I heard a faint sound.
Maybe breathing.
Maybe a chair moving.
Then Margaret whispered, “No.”
I gripped the edge of the table.
“It’s me.”
“No.”
Her voice broke.
“Oh my God.”
I stopped breathing.
“Oh my God, Emma.”
The way she said my name removed thirty years from the room.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
She started crying.
I did too.
“I thought you were dead.”
That sentence stunned me.
“What?”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Why?”
Margaret tried to compose herself.
“They told me you had been transferred.”
“To where?”
“A long-term foster placement. Then nobody would tell me anything.”
“Did you stop trying to get custody?”
“No.”
The answer came fiercely.
“Never.”
I closed my eyes.
“Records say you withdrew.”
“That is a lie.”
Morris began writing quickly.
Margaret continued.
“I filed petitions. I hired a lawyer. I wrote to Maplewood. I wrote to the county. I called anyone whose number I could find.”
“What happened?”
“Letters came back. Calls were not returned. My lawyer was told your case had moved jurisdictions.”
“Was that true?”
“I never found out.”
She drew a shaking breath.
“Then I was told you had been placed with another family and that contacting you would interfere with the adoption.”
My hand went cold.
“You knew I was adopted?”
“I knew eventually.”
“By whom?”
“No.”
I looked at Morris.
She motioned for me to continue.
“Why did you think I died?”
“Years later I tried again.”
Her voice became quieter.
“A man at a county office told me that the child in the file might have died because there was a death notation attached to an old record.”
Morris looked sharply at me.
“Did he say when?”
“No.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“Not anymore.”
Margaret cried softly.
“I spent years not knowing whether you were alive.”
I pressed a hand over my mouth.
A woman I had never met had grieved me.
The thought was unbearable.
“I’m alive.”
“I know.”
A small laugh broke through her tears.
“I can hear that.”
I asked the question that had been sitting inside me since the attic.
“Why did you want me?”
Margaret went quiet.
Then she said, “Because you were Daniel’s little girl.”
The simplicity of it undid me.
“He was my only brother.”
I looked at Alicia’s envelope.
“What were they like?”
“Your parents?”
“Yes.”
“They were young. Tired. Funny. Always late.”
I laughed through tears.
“Your mother could burn water. Your father thought he could repair anything and usually made it worse.”
My chest hurt.
“Were they good parents?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
“They adored you.”
I looked down.
Margaret continued more softly.
“I still have photographs.”
“I saw one today.”
“Which?”
“You standing beside them near a car. I’m a baby.”
Margaret inhaled sharply.
“The green Buick.”
“I can’t tell the color.”
“That was Daniel’s horrible green Buick.”
She laughed.
I heard family in the laugh.
Not because I recognized it.
Because I wanted to.
“Can I meet you?”
I asked.
Margaret stopped.
Then, “Are you sure?”
“No.”
She laughed again through tears.
“That sounds like Daniel.”
“When?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
I looked at Agent Morris.
“Tomorrow.”
Morris raised an eyebrow.
Margaret went quiet.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
After we ended the call, I sat without moving.
Agent Morris turned off the recorder.
“You did well.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you asked difficult questions without trying to force easy answers.”
I leaned back.
“She never stopped looking.”
“No.”
“And Maplewood told everyone different things.”
“That’s what it appears.”
I thought about Mom.
She had believed Margaret withdrew.
Margaret had been told I was gone.
At some point, paperwork had been used to separate reality from every person involved.
One child.
Three families.
Different stories.
I went back to Mom’s room.
She was awake.
Michael had moved the chair beside her bed.
When she saw me, she knew.
“What did Margaret say?”
I sat down.
“She never stopped trying.”
Mom closed her eyes.
Tears slid toward her ears.
“I’m sorry.”
“She doesn’t know you.”
“I know.”
“She didn’t blame you.”
“She might when she does.”
“Maybe.”
Mom nodded.
I took her hand.
“I’m meeting her tomorrow.”
She looked at me.
“Do you want me there?”
I thought of the woman on the phone.
The aunt who had been told I might be dead.
Then I thought of Helen.
The mother who had raised me.
“Yes.”
Mom’s fingers tightened around mine.
“All right.”
“There’s one condition.”
“What?”
“You have to be able to walk.”
She stared at me.
“Emma.”
“Physical therapy starts in the morning.”
“Blackmailing a postoperative patient is unethical.”
“Consider it motivation.”
She rolled her eyes.
But the next morning, when the physical therapist told her to stand, my mother did.
