They walked to the library together. Maisie pushed the bicycle. Arthur stayed several paces behind with the envelope held in both hands. June called the librarian before they reached the steps, explained only that they needed a quiet room, and received a key from a woman named Felicia who looked at Maisie's sign without asking about it.
The library smelled of paper, carpet cleaner, and the faint dusty warmth of old computers. Maisie had loved that smell since she was small. It meant somewhere a person could stay without buying anything.
She parked the bicycle in the courtyard where it could be seen through the window.
Arthur stopped by the circulation desk.
“Would it be all right if I ordered sandwiches here?” he asked June.
Maisie turned sharply.
He looked at her.
“For everyone. Not in exchange for anything.”
She wanted to refuse. Her stomach made a small noise before she could.
Felicia opened a drawer beneath the desk.
“We have crackers,” she said. “And apples from the school program. You can start with those.”
Maisie stared at her.
“Anyone can have them?”
“That's why they're here.”
Felicia slid an apple across the counter as if handing over a library card.
The ordinary way she did it saved Maisie from crying.
Nora arrived sixteen minutes later in a cardigan over the shirt she had been wearing at breakfast. Her hair was pulled back badly, and one of her shoes was not tied. She came through the doorway holding herself very straight, the way she did when climbing stairs had made her breathless and she didn't want anybody to notice.
Maisie ran to her.
Nora knelt despite the effort and put both hands on her daughter's arms.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone ask you to leave with them?”
“No.”
“Did anyone give you money?”
“No.”
Nora looked at June, then Arthur.
He stood so abruptly his chair scraped the floor.
For a moment, they only looked at each other.
Maisie saw the resemblance before she understood she was looking for it. Something about the shape of the eyes. The way Nora's left eyebrow lifted when she was trying not to show uncertainty. Arthur was doing it too.
It frightened her enough to make her step between them.
Nora noticed and rested a hand on her shoulder.
“You must be Mr. Whitcomb,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I'm Nora Parker.”
He swallowed.
“I know.”
“No,” she said. “You don't.”
Arthur lowered his gaze.
“No. You're right.”
June offered a chair. Nora sat because refusing would have required more strength than she had. Maisie sat beside her and pushed the apple into her hand.
Nora looked down at it.
“I already ate.”
“Then eat again,” Maisie said.
The bluntness surprised everyone, including her.
Nora looked at her daughter's face. Whatever she saw there made her stop pretending. She took a small bite.
Arthur watched without staring, which was a difficult thing to do.
“I owe both of you an apology,” he said. “I shouldn't have spoken before I knew how to explain.”
“What exactly are you claiming?” Nora asked.
“That I may be your biological father.”
“Based on what?”
He placed the envelope on the table but did not push it toward her yet.
“My mother died six weeks ago. There were papers among her personal things. A letter from a doctor. A copy of a placement acknowledgment signed by Grace and Daniel Parker. Some correspondence with a lawyer who died years ago.”
Nora's hand tightened around the apple.
“My parents adopted me legally.”
“I don't doubt that they believed they did.”
“What does that mean?”
June spoke gently. “It means we should look at the papers before deciding what anyone knew.”
Nora looked at her, then at Arthur.
“Why now?”
“Because I didn't know.”
“You didn't know you had a child?”
His face tightened.
“I knew a baby was expected. I was told the mother took the child and left.”
“Who told you?”
“My mother.”
“And you believed her for thirty-four years?”
There was anger in the question, but something beneath it too. Maisie heard the part her mother had not said: Were we really that easy to lose?
Arthur looked at the envelope.
“Not at first.”
Nora waited.
“I looked. Badly, as it turns out. I trusted information I shouldn't have trusted. I stopped looking the way I should have long before I stopped telling myself I hadn't given up.”
The room was quiet.
Outside the window, a child rang the bell of a bicycle that was not Maisie's.