“The offer is withdrawn in that form,” he said. “There won't be a confidentiality request attached to help. The foundation's board has been informed there are serious concerns about Miriam's role in an adoption. I've asked for independent review of the relevant records.”
Nora looked at the page without taking it.
“Why?”
Colin swallowed.
“Because asking you to protect her name was another version of what she did.”
Grace's fingers tightened around her handbag.
Colin turned toward her.
“You should have been given the chance to know what you were agreeing to.”
Grace nodded once, tears in her eyes.
Nora did not thank him for the review.
She had learned the difference between appreciating a better choice and being expected to celebrate someone finally making it.
When the meeting ended, Colin stood by the door.
“Would you want me to meet Maisie?”
Nora looked at him for a long moment.
“Not yet.”
He nodded.
“All right.”
It was the first no he had accepted from her without reaching for another argument.
Evelyn's return ticket was for the following Friday.
Nora knew that. She had known it since the visit was planned. Still, when Evelyn mentioned packing, something sharp moved beneath her ribs that had nothing to do with her health.
“You're leaving already?”
Evelyn stopped folding a scarf.
“I've been here twelve days.”
“I know.”
“I have classes. A friend has been covering them. The studio—”
“You don't have to explain.”
The sentence sounded colder than Nora meant it to.
Evelyn looked at her carefully.
“I think perhaps I do.”
Nora stood by the hotel window. She had come to help with a suitcase and found herself angry at a zipper.
“I don't want to be childish.”
“Then don't make wanting something the same as being childish.”
Nora turned.
Evelyn sat on the edge of the bed.
“What do you want?”
The question was simple enough to be dangerous.
Nora looked at the half-packed suitcase.
“More time.”
Evelyn's face softened, then filled with grief of a different kind.
“So do I.”
“I know you have a life.”
“Yes.”
“And I don't want you to leave it just because—”
“Because you're here?”
Nora looked away.
Evelyn stood and came beside her, not touching until Nora leaned toward her.
“I spent years learning how to live after losing you. That life isn't an insult to finding you.”
“I know.”
“Knowing doesn't stop it hurting.”
“No.”
They stood together by the window.
Then Evelyn took out a calendar.
“Let's put the next visit somewhere we can see it.”
They chose a weekend six weeks away. They arranged calls. Not constant messages that would turn love into a duty to remain available every hour. Tuesday evenings. Sunday mornings if neither was busy. Photographs whenever something felt worth sending.
Nora wrote the dates in her phone.
The practical shape of it helped.
Before leaving, she asked whether Evelyn wanted her to use Rose.
Evelyn looked surprised.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“You're Nora. Rose was the name I held when I didn't know where you were. I don't want to turn finding you into asking you to become the baby I remember.”
Nora's eyes filled.
“I could use it somewhere. A middle name.”
“If you want it for yourself. Not because I need payment for the years.”
Nora nodded.
For the first time, she felt the name offered rather than placed upon her.
Grace went home three days after Evelyn.
She cried at the bus station. Nora cried too. Maisie did not cry until they were back in the car, when she announced that too many people had developed travel plans.
June drove with both hands on the wheel.
“People can go places and still belong to you,” she said.
Maisie looked out the window.
“I know that in my brain.”
“Brains are often ahead of the rest of us.”
At home, Nora put the calendar on the refrigerator. Grace's next visit. Evelyn's next visit. Appointments. Maisie's school concert. A day marked simply REST, which June had written in block capitals large enough to count as a warning.
Arthur's name appeared on Thursday beside the words BELL CHECK.
Maisie touched that square.
“He's still here.”
Nora nodded.
“Yes.”
“Does he have a house?”
“He does. In Pennsylvania.”
“Then won't he have to go there too?”
“Sometimes.”
Maisie sat at the table.
Nora came beside her.
“We need more than one person in our plan, bug. That's what we're building. Not one person who can never leave a room.”