Miriam gave them that reason.
She met them in a small office near the clinic. She spoke warmly about a young woman who wanted her baby raised by steady people. The father agreed, she said. He had ambitions that did not include children yet. There was no need for a direct meeting because it would make the decision harder for everyone.
“I asked if the mother had someone with her,” Grace said. “Miriam said yes. I asked if she was certain. Miriam said certainty was sometimes painful, and decent people didn't make a young woman repeat it for their comfort.”
Nora looked up.
“She made asking sound selfish.”
“Yes.”
“And you stopped.”
Grace closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
The lawyer provided papers bearing signatures. The process continued. Grace and Daniel brought Nora home. They paid fees they understood to be legal and medical expenses. Nothing in the folder described a purchase. Nothing in it warned them that a woman elsewhere might be mourning a child she believed dead.
“Did you ever think the signatures were wrong?” Nora asked.
“No.”
“Did you know what hers looked like?”
“No.”
Nora picked up the page containing the supposed consent. Evelyn Hart appeared at the bottom in a careful slanted hand. Arthur's name was on another page, attached to language Nora did not understand.
“Would Dad have searched if he'd known?”
Grace looked at her daughter with sudden force.
“Yes. Daniel would have torn up the road looking.”
Nora's face crumpled.
“I wish he were here.”
“So do I.”
For a while, they cried without speaking. Then Nora took out her phone and called June.
“Will you ask Arthur to come up?”
Grace dried her face with a tissue.
“I don't know how to talk to him.”
“Then say that,” Nora answered.
Arthur entered carrying three paper cups, saw the blue folder, and set the cups down so carefully he might have been afraid they would explode.
Grace stood.
He did too, though he had not yet sat.
For one moment the absurdity nearly made Nora laugh.
Grace said, “I don't know how to talk to you.”
Arthur nodded.
“I don't either.”
“I loved her.”
“I can see that.”
“I didn't know.”
“I believe you.”
Grace looked at him for a long moment.
“Please don't believe me just because it's easier.”
Arthur's face changed.
“No,” he said. “I'm learning not to do that.”
They sat across the table. Nora showed him the signatures. He looked at the one bearing his name and went very still.
“That isn't mine.”
“Are you sure?” Grace asked.
He opened his wallet and found an old card he had kept for reasons he could not explain. It was a license from the early nineties, replaced and forgotten behind newer cards. His signature ran low and almost illegibly across the bottom.
The signature on the consent was upright, every letter distinct.
Nora looked between them.
“That doesn't prove everything,” she said.
“No,” Arthur agreed. “We need people who know how to examine it.”
“I want my own lawyer.”
He nodded immediately.
“I'll pay if you'd allow it, but you should choose. Someone who represents you, not me.”
Grace glanced at him, surprised by the distinction.
Nora was not.
She had spent enough time with bills to know whoever paid sometimes expected to own the answer.
“And a test,” she said.
Arthur's hand tightened on the edge of the chair.
“Yes.”
“Properly done. Not something you bring me in a sealed envelope.”
“Yes.”
“You keep saying yes.”
He looked at her.
“I've had thirty-four years of questions. I'm trying not to be offended when somebody else asks them.”
Nora studied him, then nodded.
“Good.”
The test was arranged later that week with Nora's consent and an independent process explained by people who had no interest in whether the result made Arthur happy. Nora wanted Maisie kept out of that part. Her daughter had already been pulled far enough into adult uncertainty.
Maisie objected anyway.
“What if they mix it up?”
“They have procedures,” Nora said.
“What if the procedures are bad?”
“Then my lawyer will ask questions.”
“What's her name?”
“Amelia Ortiz.”
“Does she look mean?”
Nora smiled.
“She looks organized.”
Maisie considered that a better qualification and let the matter rest for almost an hour.
Nora came home on Thursday.