"What are you thinking?" Cheryl asked.

"That if Amy was seeing this man around then, he could be Will's father."

"He's so her type. Amy went for bad boys."

Ellen eyed the man, who wasn't bad-looking for a bad boy, with narrow eyes and long brown ponytail. Something about him looked almost familiar, but maybe it was that he looked a little like W. He had the smile, a little tilted down, but it looked like a smirk on him. The photo was too blurry to see more detail and it had been taken from a distance. "In the email, did Amy say who he was, or where they were?"

"No."

Ellen mulled it over. "It could be anywhere it's warm, which could be anywhere, in June. What did she say in the email, if I can ask?"

"Nothing. She just sent the photo. Nice, huh?" Cheryl scoffed again, but Ellen's gaze remained on the photo. She could be looking at Will's birth parents. Charles Cartmell, if it was him, had a sleeve of multicolored tattoos she couldn't read and he looked a little drunk, even in the fuzzy resolution.

"The focus is so bad on this."

"It could be my printer. Keep that copy and I'll email you another, if you want."

"Please, do." Ellen told Cheryl her email address. "Did Amy have any girlfriends?"

"She never got along with other girls. She hung with the guys."

Ellen made a mental note. "You said Amy emails you. Did she ever mention any men in her emails?"

"Not that I remember."

"Would you mind looking back at the emails, so we can check?"

"I can't, I deleted them." Cheryl checked her watch. "Well, it's getting kind of late."

"Sure, I should go." Ellen rose with her papers, hiding her frustration. "Thanks so much for meeting with me. Think she'll email me?"

"God knows."

Ellen said her good-byes and left, wondering if it was really Charles Cartmell in the photo. She hit the cold air outside and looked up at the sky, dark and starless.

Maybe it wasn't too late to take a drive.

Chapter Thirty-one

Ellen sat in her car with the engine off, watching the snow fall in the dark, holding the court papers. She was parked outside of an elementary school, a three-story redbrick edifice that had been there since 1979, according to its keystone. The school was at Charles Cartmell's address, but obviously, he didn't live here. He had never lived here. Amy must have pulled the address out of thin air and made up the name, too. She might as well have picked Count Chocula.

Ellen wasn't completely surprised. She had known that Grant Avenue was one of the busiest streets in the Northeast, in a commercial area, but she had been hoping that there would be an apartment house or maybe a converted rowhouse.

Cars rushed past her, their windshield wipers pumping and their red brake lights burning holes into the night. She looked again at the photo of Amy and the man on the beach. The streetlight cast an oblong of purplish light across his face, but his eyes remained in shadow.

"Who is my son?" she asked the silence.

Chapter Thirty-two

"Thanks so much for staying, Con." Ellen closed the front door behind her, feeling a wave of guilt. It was after eleven o'clock, and on TV, a bow-tied weatherman was sticking a yardstick into three inches of snow. "I really do appreciate it."

"S'okay." Connie rose tiredly from the couch, her Sudoku book in hand. "Everything go okay at your meeting?"

"Yes, thanks." Ellen got Connie's coat from the closet and handed it to her. "How's my baby boy?"

"Fine." Connie slipped into her coat. "But it was Crazy Shirt Day at school, and you forgot his shirt. I reminded you, last week. I thought it was in his backpack and just went."

"Oh no." Ellen felt another wave of guilt, which made two in two minutes, a record even for her. "Was he upset?"

"He's three, El."

"I should have remembered."

"No, I should've checked. I will, next time."

"Poor kid." Ellen kicked herself. Will hated to be the one who was different. The one who was adopted. The one with no dad. Neither she nor Will was like the other. "You even reminded me."

"Don't beat yourself up. It's easy to lose track. Crazy Hat Day, Snack Mom, Pajama Day, whatever. I didn't have to deal with that when Mark was little."

Connie slid her puzzle book into her tote bag, picked up her things, then straightened up. "They're working you too hard."

"And I'm working you too hard." Ellen squeezed her shoulder. "Please tell Chuck I'm sorry for keeping you."

"He can get his own meal for a change. It won't kill him." Connie opened the door, letting in a blast of cold, wet air. "Snow's already stopping, isn't it?"

"Yes, but drive safe. Thanks again." Ellen held the door, then closed and locked it behind her. She took off her coat and hung it up, dwelling. She was screwing up left and right lately. Forgetting the crazy shirt. Missing the projects meeting. It had all started with the white card in the mail. She hoped Amy emailed her soon and she could put it all behind her.

Ellen went into the kitchen and brewed herself a fresh mug of coffee, pushing Amy to the back of her mind. She had a story to write and she was starved. She scarfed a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats over the sink, leaving her leftover milk to Oreo Figaro, who leapt onto the counter, purring deeply as he lapped it up. When he was finished, he looked up from the bowl, blinking his yellow-green eyes in a silent request for more. The tiniest droplet of milk clung to his chin.

"We have to get to work," Ellen said, taking back the bowl.

Up in her home office, she began as she did with any story. There were no shortcuts, at least none that worked. She built her stories from the bottom up, and her first step was always transcribing her notes. If she needed to quote directly, she'd go to the tapes. Then, usually, if she'd had enough caffeine, her brain would lurch into action and an angle for the story would suggest itself. She took a sip of hot coffee, glanced at the notes beside her, and started with the interview of Lateef's mother, typing:

Pies "too ugly" to serve. She wants it in the paper, so kids are not a number "like it's Powerball."

Ellen kept going, trying to remember the mood of the interview and how she felt sitting in Laticia's kitchen, but her thoughts strayed back to Cheryl's house and the picture of Amy and the man on the beach.

"Ain't nothin' gonna change here, and this is America."

Ellen flipped the page of her notebook and kept transcribing, but it was only mechanical. She'd learned a lot about Will in one day. She'd met his mother, grandmother, and aunt. She might have seen what his father looked like. She tried to keep typing but her fingers slowed and thoughts of the Martin family intruded. She found herself wondering if Cheryl had emailed her a copy of the photo of Amy and the man on the beach.

She minimized her Word file and opened up Outlook Express. Incoming emails piled onto the screen, and she ignored the one from Sarah with the attachment and subject line: FYI, I EMAILED MARCELO MY PIECE. Suddenly an email came on the screen from [email protected].

Ellen clicked it open. It was Cheryl's. The message read, Nice meeting you, and there was an attachment. She opened the attachment, and the photo of Amy and the man on the beach popped onto the screen. Though she'd seen it before, she couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that Amy was Will's mother and the man on the beach his father, glowing on her computer screen. She looked over her shoulder in case Will had gotten out of bed, but there was nothing behind her except Oreo Figaro, his front legs stretched on the rug like Superman in flight.

She squinted at the picture. It was brighter online, but still blurry and the images too distant. She knew how to rectify that. She saved the photo to My Pictures and opened Photoshop, then uploaded the photo, drew a box around Amy's face, and clicked Zoom. The image exploded into pixels, so she telescoped it down a little, then examined Amy's features with care. The shape of her eyes didn't look much like Will's, though they were blue, but her nose was longer than Will's and too wide.