Silence fell between them, and Ellen made no move to fill it. The ugliest of thoughts popped into her head-the wrong one had died. She felt ashamed of the very notion, and confused. She loved her father.
"I guess I knew you"d get upset. You and your mother were two of a kind. Peas in a pod."
Ellen couldn"t speak for a moment. Her mother had been her best friend in the world. That said it all.
"Life goes on."
Ellen felt the knot again, then flipped her thinking. "So when"s the wedding? I need to get a dress and all."
"Uh, it"s in Italy."
"Italy? Why?"
"Barbara likes it there, near Positano." Her father cut his sandwich and took a bite, leaving Ellen to fill in the blanks.
"Am I going? Is Will?"
"Sorry, but no." Her father looked back at her over his sandwich. "It"s not a big deal, not at our age. We"re just doing it, no muss, no fuss. We"re getting on a plane end of the week."
"Wow, that soon?"
"I told her you"d be fine with it. Her kid"s fine with it."
"I understand." Ellen tried to shrug it off. "I"m officially fine with it."
"She has a daughter, too. Year older than you. Abigail."
"I thought she had a boy in the Peace Corps."
"That was Janet."
"Oh." Ellen smiled. It was was kind of funny. "Well, good. I always wanted a sister. Can I have a pony, too?" kind of funny. "Well, good. I always wanted a sister. Can I have a pony, too?"
At that, he smiled, chewing.
"What does she do, my new sister?"
"Lawyer in D.C."
"I always wanted a lawyer, too." Ellen laughed, and so did he, setting down his sandwich.
"Ha! That"s enough, wise guy."
"I think it"s good, I really do." Ellen felt better saying it, and her chest knot loosened just a bit. "Be happy, Dad."
"I love you, kitten."
"I love you, too." Ellen managed a smile.
"You gonna eat or what?"
"No, I"m waiting for the wedding cake."
He rolled his eyes.
"So tell me what she looks like."
"Here, I"ll show you." Her father leaned over, slid a brown wallet from his back pocket, and opened it up. He flipped past the second plastic envelope, which had an old photo of Will, and the third, he turned sideways and set down on the table. "That"s Barbara."
Ellen eyed the woman, who was attractive, with her hair in a short, cla.s.sy cut. "Mommy!"
"Gimme that." Her father smiled and took the wallet back.
"She looks nice. Is she nice?"
"Of course she"s nice." He leaned over to put the wallet into his back pocket. "What do you think? She"s a jerk, that"s why I"m marrying her?"
"Are you going to move in with her, or is she moving in here?"
"I"m selling the house and moving in with her. She"s got a corner unit with a deck."
"You gold digger, you."
He smiled again, then leaned back in his chair, regarding her for a moment. "You know, you gotta move on, kid."
Ellen felt the knot again. Time to change the subject. "I interviewed this woman whose husband kidnapped her children. Susan Sulaman, if you remember the story I did."
He shook his head, no, and Ellen let it go. Her mother would have remembered the story. She"d kept sc.r.a.pbooks of Ellen"s clippings, starting with the college newspaper and ending three weeks before she died.
"Anyway, Susan thinks there"s an instinct that mothers have about their children."
"Your mother had that in spades." Her father beamed. "Look how good you turned out, all because of her."
"Hold on, let me show you something." Ellen got up, opened her purse, and extracted the photo of Timothy Braverman as a baby, then handed it to her father. "How cute is this baby?"
"Cute."
"Do you know who he is?"
"What am I, stupid? It"s Will."
Ellen stood over him as if suspended, not knowing whether to tell him. He and Sarah had both mistaken Timothy for Will. She felt funny about it, and not good funny. It made her uncomfortable. She realized now why she was missing her mother so much. She could have told her mother about Timothy Braverman. Her mother would have known what to do.
"He"s grown up a lot since then, hasn"t he?" her father asked, holding up the photo with unmistakable pride.
"How so? I mean, what differences do you see?"
"The forehead." He circled the area with an index finger knotted from arthritis. "His forehead got a lot bigger, and his cheeks, they"re full now." He handed her back the photo. "He just grew into his face."
"He sure did." Ellen lied more easily than she thought, for a bad liar. She folded the paper, put it back inside her purse, and sat down, but her father was looking reflective, pouring them a gla.s.s of tea.
"You were like that, too, just like that. When you were little, your face was so wide. I used to say you looked like a salad plate. Will"s the same way. He gets it from you."
"Dad, he"s adopted, remember?"
"Oh, right." Her father laughed. "You"re such a good mother, I always think you"re his real mother."
Ellen let that go, too. She usually felt like Will"s real mother, until someone told her she wasn"t. But she knew what he meant.
"You got that mother instinct from your mother. You"re every inch her daughter. That he"s adopted, it doesn"t matter. That"s why we keep forgetting. It"s like proof."
"Maybe you"re right." Ellen nodded, oddly grateful.
But then again, Don Gleeson could sell anybody anything.
Chapter Thirteen.
Ellen finally got home and closed the front door behind her. "How is he?" she asked Connie, keeping her voice low.
"Hanging in. I gave him Tylenol at two." Connie checked her watch. "He"s been asleep since four."
"Did he eat?" Ellen shed her coat and hung it in the closet as Connie reached for hers, the domestic changing of the guard.
"Chicken soup and crackers. Flat ginger ale. We took it easy today. All he wanted to do was stay in bed." Connie slipped into her coat. "I read to him after lunch until he got sleepy."
"Thanks so much."
"Don"t know how much he heard of it, though. He was just lying there." Connie zipped up her coat and picked up her tote bag, which was already packed.
"Poor thing."
"Give him a kiss for me." Connie got her purse, and Ellen opened the door, said her good-byes, then shut the door and locked it, preoccupied. If Will had just gone to sleep, she had a window of time to do something that had been bugging her on the ride home. She kicked off her boots and hurried upstairs.
Half an hour later, she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, bent over her task. A blown-gla.s.s lamp cast an ellipse of light on two photos of Timothy Braverman, the age-progressed picture from the white card and the computer printout of his baby photo from ACMAC.com. Next to those were a pile of ten photos of Will, chosen because they showed his features the best. Oreo Figaro sat beside her like the Sphinx, keeping his own counsel.
Ellen arranged Will"s photos in two rows of five, in chronological order. The top row was a younger Will, the first year she had him, at age one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half. The bottom row was the second year she"d had him, ages two-and-a-half to present. She looked at them all, examining his face over time, from its thinnest and least healthy to a beaming little boy. It was like watching a sunflower open and thrive, turning to the sun.
She returned to the top row of photos and picked the youngest one that was the most representative of Will"s features. It showed him at about one-and-a-half years old, in a flannel shirt and overalls, sitting next to an oversized pumpkin at Halloween. Suddenly, Susan Sulaman broke through Ellen"s consciousness.
It was October, a week before Halloween. Lynnie was going as a fish.
She shook it off, staying the course. She picked up the Halloween photo of Will and held it next to the photo of Timothy, taken at about a year old. He was also sitting, but in his stroller, and when Ellen put the photos side by side, she felt an undeniable jolt.
Their faces looked so much alike as babies that they could have been identical twins. Their blue eyes were the same shape, size, and hue, their noses carbon copies, and their mouths plastered with the same goofy smile, in which the right corner turned down. Both boys were sitting in the exact same way; oddly upright for such young children. No wonder Sarah and her father had mistaken them. She held the photos closer to the lamp, and it spooked her. She shook her head in disbelief, yet couldn"t deny what she was seeing.
She set the photos down and went to the second row, of older photos of Will. She picked one of the most recent, in which Will was sitting on their front porch on the first day of preschool, wearing a new green T-shirt, green shorts, and green socks. It was an unfortunate choice for a favorite color, unless you were a leprechaun.
She picked up the age-progressed photo of Timothy and held it next to the photo of Will. They were almost dead ringers, even though the photo of Timothy was only black-and-white. Their eyes were the same shape, round and wide set. The smiles were similar, though she couldn"t see all of Timothy"s teeth and she knew Will"s were perfect. The only slight difference was their hair, because Timothy"s was described as blond, and Will"s was dark blond. There was a likeness, too, in the configuration of their features, and again, their very aspect.
Ellen set the photos down, but she had one more thing she wanted to try. She picked up the baby photo of Timothy and held it next to the older photo of Will, starting preschool. She eyeballed them, and it was almost as if Timothy got older and turned into Will. Eyes, nose, mouth; all were the same, but bigger, older, more mature. Ellen felt her stomach tense.
Then she got another idea. She set down the photos, then picked up the older photo of Will going to preschool and the baby photo of Timothy in the stroller. She compared them, and before her eyes, Will regressed back into Timothy as a baby. Ellen"s mouth went dry.
"Connie!" Will called out from his bedroom.
"Coming, honey!" she called back, leaping from the bed so quickly she almost tripped on the duvet. Oreo Figaro jumped out of the way, objecting with a loud meow.
The photos scattered, unwanted, to the floor.
Chapter Fourteen.
"It"s Mommy, honey." Ellen went over to Will"s bed, and his sobs intensified, cranky wails in the dark room.
"I"m hot."
"I know, baby." Ellen scooped him up and hugged him close, and he flopped onto her, resting his head sideways on her shoulder and clinging to her like a baby koala. His face was damp against her neck, and she rocked him as she stood. "My poor baby."
"Why am I hot?"
"Let"s get you out of these clothes, okay?" Ellen lowered him back into the bed, and he was too listless to squirm. He had fallen asleep in his turtleneck and overalls. "I"m gonna turn the light on, so be ready. Cover your eyes. Ready?"
Will slapped two small hands over his eyes.
"Good boy." Ellen leaned over to the night table and switched on the Babar lamp. "Okay, move your hands away from your eyes, nice and slow, so they can get used to the light."
Will moved his hands away, then came up blinking. "I"m getting used."
"Right, good." Ellen retrieved the board books that had gotten wedged inside the bed frame and set them on the night table. She unhooked the fasteners at the top of his straps, then shimmied him out of his overalls. "You had a big, long nap."
"Mommy." Will smiled shakily at her. "You"re home."
"I sure am," Ellen said, with a twinge. "I"m so glad you got such a good rest. That"s going to help you feel better. Reach for the moon, partner." She pulled off his damp shirt as Will raised his arms, and she could barely see the thin white line that divided his little-boy chest down the center, though he felt embarra.s.sed enough to wear a T-shirt when he swam. Once it had been a knotted zipper of flesh, in days she would never forget. "You hungry?"
"No."
"How about soup?" Ellen placed her palm on his forehead. She couldn"t remember the last time she"d used a thermometer, as if it proved her motherhood bona fides.