Look Again - Lisa Scottoline [58]
Ellen tried a different argument. “What if Will were ten or older, you think he’d get sent back?”
“Yes. As a legal matter, time won’t cure the fact that he was kidnapped, even though you were unwitting.”
“So it doesn’t matter that I’m the only mother he’s ever known?” Ellen found it impossible to accept. “My house is the only house he’s ever known. The school, the classmates, the neighborhood, the babysitter. We’re his world, and they’re strangers.”
“They happen to be his natural parents. It’s a very interesting dilemma.”
“No, it’s not,” Ellen shot back, miserably.
“Aw, wait.” Ron’s voice softened, transitioning from professor to friend. “We were speaking hypothetically. Come back to reality with me for a minute. I was there, when you were considering adopting him. Remember when we met, back then?”
“Yes.”
“There was, and there still is, no reason in the world to think there was anything wrong with his adoption.”
“But what about the mom with the twisted ovary? The lawyer’s suicide?”
“People who can’t get pregnant get pregnant, every day. My daughter-in-law, for one. And sadly, lawyers commit suicide. Life happens. So does death.”
“I’m not crazy, Ron.”
“I didn’t say you’re crazy. I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you got a bee in your bonnet, like my mother used to say. It’s what makes you a good reporter. By the way, it’s what made you adopt Will in the first place.” Ron wagged a finger. “You couldn’t get him out of your head, you told me.”
“I remember.” Ellen nodded sadly. Her gaze found a heavy crystal award, its beveled facets capturing a ray of sun, like an illustration of refraction in a physics book.
“You want my advice?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then listen to me.”
Ellen felt as if it were a moment of truth. She hardly breathed.
“Take these papers and put them away, at the bottom of the drawer.” Ron slid the file, the photographs, and the composite drawing across his messy desk. “Your adoption was valid. Will is your child. Enjoy him, and invite Louisa and me to his wedding.”
Ellen packed up her papers, wishing she could take his advice. “I can’t do that. I want to know what’s true.”
“I told you what’s true. You’ve elevated suspicion to fact.”
“But it doesn’t feel right.” Ellen fought her emotions to think clearly, and it was clarifying to talk about it out loud. “You know what I really feel? I feel that my kid is sick, but the doctors keep telling me he’s fine. Not just you, my father, too.”
Ron fell silent.
“But I’m his mother. I’m Dr. Mom.” Ellen heard a new conviction in her voice, which surprised even her. “Call it a mother’s instinct, or intuition, but I have it inside, and I know better.”
“I hear you. You believe what you believe.”
“Yes.”
“Nobody can tell you different.”
“Right!”
“You feel certainty. You are certain.”
“Bingo!” Ellen said, but a slow smile eased across Ron’s face, spreading his beard almost like a stage curtain.
“But you have to have a valid proof to support your certainty, and you have none. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Ellen answered, and she did. She gathered up the photographs and papers, and rose with them. “If proof is what I need, then proof is what I’ll get. Thanks so much for your help.”
“You’re very welcome.” Ron rose, too, his expression darkening. “But be careful what you wish. If you find proof that Will is Timothy Braverman, you’ll feel a lot worse than you do already. You’ll have to make a choice I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”
Ellen had thought of nothing else, when she was trying to sleep last night. “What would you do, if it were your kid?”
“Wild horses couldn’t make me give him back.”
“No doubt?”
“Not a one.”
“Then let me ask you this, counselor. How do you keep something that doesn’t belong to you?” Ellen heard herself say it out loud, though she hadn’t thought of it that way until this moment.
“Och. My.” Ron cringed. “Excellent question.”
“And how do I explain that to Will, when he grows up? What if he found out? What do I say? That I loved you, so I kept you, even though