For now, only one question remained. The person with the answer might be playing with a Batmobile at Bethany Sibbach’s house.
Where baby?
“Not exactly what I expected.” Jane smiled at Bethany. The DFS counselor said it was easier in person than on the phone, and invited Jane over. She’d set out a couple of ground rules: One, park in the back to let the snowplows clear the street. Two, that her wards, Phillip and Phoebe, were off limits. As was their history, their birth parents, and their murdered foster mother. Other than that, she’d be happy to discuss the state’s foster care system to help Jane do a “compassionate and comprehensive” story.
Jane could handle ground rules. Ground rules always changed.
And now Phillip Lussier showed no inclination to leave Jane’s lap. The little boy’s Spider-Man sneakers were leaving damp footprints on her Levis. Kids liked her, she was used to that, but this show of affection was surprising. Phillip had dropped his chocolate chip cookie on the floor the moment he saw Jane. When she sat down on the couch, he climbed onto her lap without invitation.
Jane settled Phillip in, extricating one little foot from that tender place on top of her kneecap, seeing what looked like swipes of chocolate on his blue striped T-shirt and crumbs around his lips. Somehow Jane was his new best friend.
“First time he’s smiled in-well, I can’t remember a smile.” Bethany tied the ends of her dangling cardigan into a loopy knot, then untied them. “Phoebe’s napping, for now. These kids have been through a lot. I cannot predict how much the situation will affect-well, what can I do for you, Jane?”
Jane felt the tickle of Phillip’s curls. He’d wrapped one hand around the turtleneck of her sweater, yanking it away from her face.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said. “Should we…” She looked at Bethany, baffled, hoping for direction. “Read a book or something?”
“Book!” Phillip crowed. A smile wreathed his chocolaty face, and he bounced with excitement, a pudgy bobblehead. “Read book, Mama!”
“When will she be back?” Ella paced the length of her living room, clutching her cell phone to her ear as the receptionist at the Register made up a bunch of reasons why Jane Ryland wasn’t available. “Well, is there someone who would know? Yes, I’ll hold.”
She paced the other way, seeing the color of the evening change as the streetlights popped on along her street. Someone had looped a string of valentine hearts on the building’s front door, reminding Ella that the second worst holiday in the world-after New Year’s Eve-was around the corner. She was nobody’s valentine. As a kid, had she gotten valentines? Maybe in school. But Aunt Marion, as she’d been told to call the woman, hadn’t been much for “Hallmark holidays.” Or any holidays except the “real” ones, Christmas and Easter. Mother’s Day they ignored.
“Yes?” Ella heard the connection change, but it was only someone telling her to hold again. It really sounded like the Register’s people were making up excuses for why Jane wasn’t there. Or maybe today was simply a day off. But she had to talk to Jane. Had to.
“Okay, fine, I’ll hold. She still works there, doesn’t she? Would there be a better time for me to call?”
Did she want to leave a message? the receptionist asked.
Did she? She’d already left one on Jane’s voice mail. Jane hadn’t called her back.
Had she trusted the wrong person? She usually had good instincts about people. But reality-and relationships-weren’t reliable. Ella prided herself on how she could predict which matches were going to thrive, and which ones might better have been forgotten. Maybe because of all that’d just happened, she was losing it.
“No, thanks,” she replied. “I’ll try later.”
The receptionist was saying something more, but Ella hung up. Her kitchen table now held two stacks of pilfered folders. Tucker Cameron’s. And some new ones.
Ella had come home early, as Collins Munson suggested. But she wasn’t about to abandon Ms. Finch’s office or all her personal stuff for that Grace to paw through. Not to mention the files.
Once they got hold of them, Ella realized, every bit of evidence of-whatever it was-could be gone. It was up to her to protect the history. Protect the sanctity of the Brannigan families. That’s when she realized what had been nagging her, almost tormenting her, ever since she’d begun to believe Carlyn Parker Beerman had been sent the wrong girl.
What if there were others?
Before she could change her mind, Ella had snatched the files for the last five Calls Ms. Finch had made. With the snap of rubber bands and the flap of manila folders, she’d stuffed them in her backpack and whisked them out of the building, right past Collins Munson’s closed office door.
Tonight, right after her chicken potpie and Diet Pepsi, she would make a few… what would she call them? Follow-up calls. Just to see how things were going with the five new families.
After all, she was now the “acting” Lillian Finch. And she didn’t need some reporter to help the new Ella find out what-she smiled-the hell was going on.
45
“Book, Mama! Phillip get!” Phillip leaped from Jane’s lap and plowed himself into a pile of shiny picture books stacked on the floor by the end table. He grabbed a glossy turquoise-and-red cover and held it up, triumphant. “Dis one, Mama!”
Jane recognized The Cat in the Hat.
“Did he say…?” Jane looked at Bethany, wondering if she’d heard properly. “… Mama? Did he mean me? Or does he call everyone-oof.”
Phillip clambered back onto her lap and plastered his spine against Jane’s chest, awkwardly propping the too-big book on his outstretched legs. His feet barely reached beyond Jane’s knees, and the plaid laces of one of his rubber-soled shoes had come untied.
Bethany crossed her arms in front of her, watching the two of them on the couch. “I’m sorry, Jane. Yes, he did say ‘Mama.’ And no, I must tell you he’s never said that word, not in the three days he’s been with me. He has said-well, some other things. But I’m trying to assess what, if anything, he means. Possibly you look like his birth mother? Or wear her perfume? You don’t look like Brianna Tillson. We may never know.”
“Hey, Phillip.” Jane cuddled him closer. Poor thing. “Sure, we can read this. Okay?” She looked up as the boy pawed through the pages. “Bethany? You were saying?”
“Yes. Well. There is some discussion in the literature,” Bethany, drawing out her words, seemed to be remembering, “that children who are too young to properly imprint, or who have been removed from their biological mother and put into other arrangements for care at what might be a vulnerable time in their emotional development, might possibly fail to adapt, and subsequently create the belief system that whatever woman is presented as a caregiver is, therefore, ‘mother.’ That the word represents more of a role, you see, rather than terminology signifying a specific, singular person. We call it role conflation.”
“Mama, read book. Mama! Read book!” Phillip made himself heavy in her lap. Wiggling his insistence.
It was kind of adorable, really. Reassuring. That this tiny boy would see Jane as a mother. Oh, she’d felt the stirrings. Of course. Of the possibility that someday, with someone, there’d be a little person who was half her and half-whoever. Her own mother had always told her nothing was comparable to motherhood. But that was for someday. Here, Jane understood the sad reality. Probably the reason Phillip called her “mama” was that his own mother was dead.