Arthur opened the envelope.
The first photograph showed a young woman beneath the oak tree. She wore overalls, one strap hanging loose, and held a sketchbook against her knees. Her hair fell across one side of her face. She was laughing at someone outside the picture.
Nora stared.
Maisie looked from the photograph to her mother.
The young woman's smile had Nora's small uneven tilt.
“Her name is Evelyn Reed,” Arthur said. “It was Evelyn Hart then.”
Nora touched the edge of the photograph.
“You know where she is?”
“Not yet.”
“Is she alive?”
“I believe so. June has been helping me trace a possible address.”
Nora looked up sharply.
“So you found me by accident.”
Arthur glanced at Maisie.
“I came here because the papers gave Bellwether as the place where the arrangement was made. June found your parents' names in a separate letter. We were meeting today to compare what she'd located. I didn't know you had moved back.”
“Back?” Maisie said.
Nora looked at her daughter.
“I was born here. Grandma and Grandpa lived here for a little while before they went to Cincinnati.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn't think it mattered.”
Now it mattered enough to take all the air from the room.
Arthur unfolded a page with the date May fourteenth, 1992, near the top.
Nora's birthday.
Maisie knew because they had made a cake three days earlier from a mix that expired in February. Nora said cake did not read calendars. They had used a single candle because it was the only one they could find.
Arthur laid another photograph beside the first.
A baby in a white blanket. A hospital bassinet. No name visible, only a small dark fist near the child's face.
Nora did not touch that one.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
Arthur looked startled.
Then he seemed to understand why the question had to come before anything else.
“Nothing you don't choose.”
“That's vague.”
“Yes.” He drew a breath. “I want to know if you're my daughter. If you are, I want to understand what happened. After that, I would like the chance to know you. But none of those things gives me a right to your home or your daughter.”
Nora looked down at Maisie.
The cardboard sale sign was still tucked beneath her daughter's arm.
For the first time, she seemed to read it.
“What is that?”
Maisie tried to pull it away.
Nora took the edge gently.
“Maisie.”
“It's nothing.”
Her mother read the crossed-out numbers.
Then she looked through the window at the pink bicycle.
The realization moved over her face slowly, as if every part of it hurt.
“You were selling it?”
Maisie stared at the table.
“Just seeing.”
“Why?”
She said nothing.
“Bug. Why?”
Maisie's voice came out small and furious.
“Because you weren't hungry again.”
Nora put the sign down.
Arthur turned toward the window. June looked at the floor, giving them the only privacy the room had.
Maisie couldn't stop now.
“You always aren't hungry when there's one thing left. You think I don't notice because I'm a kid. But I notice. And the bike is mine, so I can sell it if I want.”
Nora's eyes filled.
“No,” she whispered.
“It isn't fair that you get to give up everything and I can't give up one thing.”
The sentence landed harder than a shout.
Nora reached for her, but Maisie leaned back.
“I was going to get groceries. Not candy. I made a list.”
She pulled the folded paper from her pocket and pushed it across the table.
Nora opened it.
Soup. Bread. Apples. Eggs. Peanut butter.
At the bottom, in smaller letters, Tea Mom Likes.
Her mother covered her mouth.
Maisie felt suddenly ashamed of the tea.
“It was only if there was enough.”
Nora gathered her into both arms then, and Maisie let her, though she was still angry and though the library room contained two people she barely knew.
For a long moment, her mother held her without speaking.
Then she said into Maisie's hair, “This is not your job.”
Maisie shut her eyes.
“Then whose is it?”
Nora had no answer ready.
That frightened her more than the envelope.
The sandwiches arrived in a white paper bag carried by a teenager from the deli. Arthur paid at the door while June moved the documents to the far end of the table. Nobody asked Nora to make a decision before eating. That small mercy allowed her to remain in the room.