"Why can't I leave well enough alone?" she asked, aloud.

But Oreo Figaro merely blinked in response.

Chapter Twenty-four

The next morning as Ellen put on her coat, she was already wondering how soon she could call Amy Martin. Will's fever had broken, and he was running around the living room with a new Penn State football that Connie had just brought for him. Ellen withheld the lecture on not introducing new toys before school. Working mothers had no time for spontaneity unless it was scheduled.

"He knows just what to do!" Connie said, delighted. "My Mark was like that, too."

"Look at me!" Will circled the coffee table with the blue football tucked under his arm. "Look, Mommy!"

"Watch where you're going, buddy," Ellen called back, and Oreo Figaro jumped out of the way as Will hurtled past him, turned left into the dining room, and ran into the kitchen. He ran through the kitchen, up and over the stairway, and ended up back in the living room, a circular floor plan designed for little boys and NASCAR drivers.

Connie said, "You know, he looks like a natural athlete."

"You think?" Ellen picked up her purse and briefcase, listening to the pounding of Will's feet through the kitchen. Whoever coined the expression pitter-patter-of-little-feet had a kitten, not a child.

"I should get Mark over here to throw the ball with him sometime."

Will came running back into the living room and looked up grinning, his cheeks flushed. "I did it! I made a yesdown!"

"You mean a touchdown?" Connie corrected him, and Ellen laughed and held out her arms.

"Gimme a hug. I gotta go to work and you gotta go to school."

"Mommy!" Will ran to her, and Ellen hugged and kissed him, brushing his bangs from his eyes.

"Love you. Have fun at school."

"Can I bring my football?" Will's eyes widened with hope.

"No," Ellen answered.

"Yes," Connie said, at the same minute.

"I WANT TO!" Will hollered, jiggered up.

"Hey, quiet down, pal." Ellen held his arm, trying to settle him. "No shouting in the house."

"I want to bring my ball, Mommy!"

"Fine, okay." Ellen didn't want to leave on a bad note, another axiom of Working Mother Guilt.

"Goody!" Will rewarded her with another hug, dropping the football and throwing his arms around her neck.

Ellen felt a twinge of separation anxiety, worse than usual.

Maybe because she knew what she was about to do, after she left.

Chapter Twenty-five

Ellen eyed the cars stacked ahead, their red taillights a glowing line, their exhaust trailing white plumes. The day was overcast and cold, and freezing rain had left an icy sleeve on the tree branches and a black veneer on the roads. The traffic stayed bad on the two-lane roads to Stoatesville, and in time, she found Corinth Street among the warren of rowhouses in a working-class neighborhood around an abandoned steel mill. She traveled down the street, reading the house numbers. Suddenly her cell phone started ringing in her purse, and she fumbled for it. The display showed a number she didn't recognize, and she hit Ignore when she realized that the house coming up was number 393.

Amy Martin's house.

A woman was standing in its driveway, scraping ice off the windshield of an old black Cherokee. Her back was turned, and she wore an Eagles knit cap, a thick black parka, jeans, and black rubber boots.

Amy?

Ellen pulled up in front of the house, grabbed her bag and file, got out, walked up the driveway. "Excuse me, Ms. Martin?" she asked, her heart thumping like crazy.

She turned, startled, and Ellen saw instantly that the woman was too old to be Amy Martin. She looked to be in her late sixties, and her hooded eyes widened under the Eagles hat. She said, "Jeez, you scared me!"

"Sorry." Ellen introduced herself. "I'm looking for Amy Martin."

"Amy's my daughter, and she don't live here anymore. I'm Gerry."

Ellen tried to keep her bearings. Gerry Martin had been one of the witnesses on the consent form. She was looking into the eyes of Will's grandmother, the first blood relative of his she had ever seen. "She gave this address as hers, two years ago."

"She always does, but she don't live here. I get all her mail, all those damn bills, I throw 'em all away."

"Where does Amy live?"

"Hell if I know." Gerry returned to scraping the windshield, shaving fragile curls of ice, making a krrp krrp sound. She pursed her lips with the effort, sending deep wrinkles radiating from her mouth. Her black glove was over-sized, dwarfing the red plastic scraper.

"You don't know where she is?"

"No." Krrp krrp. "Amy's over eighteen. It ain't my business no more."

"How about where she works?"

"Who said she works?"

"I'm just trying to find her."

"I can't help you."

For some reason, Ellen hadn't imagined there'd be an estrangement. "When was the last time you saw her?"

"Awhile."

"A year or two?"

"Try five."

Ellen knew it couldn't be true. Gerry had signed the consent form two years ago. Why was she lying? "Are you sure?"

Gerry looked over, eyes narrowed under the fuzzy hat, scraper stalled on the windshield. "She owes you money, right? You're a bill collector or a lawyer or somethin"?"

"No." Ellen paused. If she wanted the truth, she'd have to tell the truth. "Actually, I'm the woman who adopted her baby."

Gerry burst into laughter, showing yellowed teeth and bracing herself against the Jeep, scraper in hand.

"Why is that funny?" Ellen asked, and after Gerry stopped laughing, she wiped her eyes with the back of her big glove.

"You better come in, honey." "Why?"

"We got some talkin' to do," Gerry answered, placing her gloved hand on Ellen's shoulder.

Chapter Twenty-six

Gerry went into the kitchen to make coffee, leaving Ellen in the living room, which was barely illuminated by two retro floor lamps, their low-wattage bulbs in ball-shaped fixtures on a stalk. Beige curtains covered the windows, and the air was thick with stale cigarette smoke. Flowered metal trays served as end tables flanking a worn couch of blue velveteen, and three mismatched chairs clustered around a large-screen TV.

Ellen crossed the room, drawn to photographs that ran the length of the wall. There were over-sized school pictures of boys and girls in front of screensaver blue skies, photo montages cut to fit the various circles and squares, and a wedding photo of a young man and a woman in an elaborate bridal headdress. She shook her head in wonderment. They were Will's blood, but complete strangers, and she was his mother, known and loved by him, but having none of his blood. She went from one photo to the next, trying to put together the puzzle that was her son.

Which girl is Amy?

The photos showed girls and boys at all different ages, and Ellen tried to follow each child as he or she grew up, picking blue eyes from brown and matching young smiles to older smiles, age-progressing all of them in her mind's eye, searching for Amy. One of the girls had blondish hair and blue eyes, plus Will's fair skin, with just the hint of freckles dotting a small, pert nose.

"Here we go." Gerry came into the room with a skinny brown cigarette and two heavy glass mugs of murky coffee, one of which she handed to Ellen.

"Thanks."

"Siddown, will ya?" Gerry gestured at the couch, her cigarette trailing an acrid snake of smoke, but Ellen stayed with the photos.

"Can I ask, is this one Amy, with the blue eyes and freckles?"

"No, that's Cheryl, her sister. The girl with her is my oldest. I had three girls, one boy."