"But I can't. It's just silly."

"Dad." Ellen touched his arm, the cashmere soft under her fingertips, and the tight line of his mouth softened just a little. "It wasn't a trick, but the photo wasn't W. It was Timothy. They look that much alike, exactly alike."

"So the kid looks like Will, so what?" He shrugged.

"They could be the same kid."

"No, they can't." Her father almost laughed. "You can't tell anything from those police drawings. I know, they're on TV news all the time." He pointed to the doorway. "They look like one of Will's coloring books, in that damn chest out there."

"They have an artist who does them. They're real tools the police use.

"There's no way in the world you can tell who a composite is by tracing a picture over his face." Her father looked at Ellen with a smile reserved for the delusional, and for a minute, she almost saw it his way. "You adopted that little boy in there, my only grandchild, legally. You had a lawyer."

"Who killed herself."

"So what? What are you saying?"

Ellen didn't even know. "It just seems strange. Coincidental."

"Bah!" Her father waved her off, chuckling. "Forget about it, it's crazy talk. You adopted that boy, and he loves you. He was half-dead. Nobody wanted him but you. Nobody was there for him but you."

Ellen felt touched, but that wasn't the point. "What matters now is whether he's Timothy."

"He is not Timothy. He's just a kid who looks like Timothy. He's not the same kid. He's W. He's ours." Her father paused, then looked at her with a half smile. "El, listen to me. Barbara's grandkids, Joshie and Jakie, you could swap 'em out and nobody would know the difference."

"Are they twins?"

"No, but they look alike, and they look like Will, too. They're all little boys, and they all look alike."

Ellen burst into laughter, and it felt good.

"Well, it's the truth." Her father warmed to the topic, moving closer. "Didn't anybody ever say to you, "Hey, you look just like somebody I know?" That ever happen to you, Elly Belly?"

Sure.

"Of course. It happens to me all the time. I look like people, who knows? Handsome men. George Clooney, maybe." Her father grinned. "That's all you got goin' on here. Don't worry about it."

Ellen's heart eased a little. "You think?"

"I know. They look alike but they're not the same kid. Will is ours, forever. He's ours." Her father gave her an aromatic, if awkward, hug, and Ellen knew he believed he had closed the deal.

"You sold me, Dad."

"I'm always selling somebody, kiddo." Her father grinned again. "But it's easy when you believe what you sell, and I believe this. Relax, honey. You're getting all worked up over nothing. Forget all this nonsense."

Ellen wanted to believe him. If Will wasn't really Timothy, then it all went away and they could be happy again.

"You seein' anybody?"

"Huh?" Ellen didn't know when the topic changed. "You mean, like a date?"

"Yes, exactly like a date." Her father smiled.

"No."

"Not since what's-his-name?"

"No."

"Not interested in anybody?"

Ellen thought of Marcelo. "Not really."

"Why not?" Her father puckered his lower lip, comically, and she knew he was trying to cheer her up. "A knockout like you? Why put yourself up on the shelf? You should go out more, you know? Live a little. Go dancing."

"I have W."

"We'll sit for him." Her father took her hand in his, encircled her with his other hand, and started humming. "Let me lead, you follow."

"Okay, okay." Ellen laughed, finding the box step of the fox trot, letting herself be danced around the kitchen to her father's singing "Steppin' Out with My Baby" as he steered her from the small of her back, his firm hand a perfect rudder.

"Will, come see your ol" Pops!" he called over his shoulder, and in the next minute, Will came thundering into the kitchen.

"Ha, Mommy!" He ran to them, and they took his hands and the three of them shuffled around in a ring-around-the-rosy circle, with her father singing and Will looking up from one to the other, his blue eyes shining.

Ellen couldn't sing because of the sharp ache she felt inside, a sudden pain so palpable that she almost burst into tears, and she wished that her mother were still alive to take Will's hand and dance with them in a circle, all four of them happy and whole, a family again.

But it was an impossible wish, and Ellen sent it packing. She looked down at her child with tears in her eyes and all the love in her broken heart.

He's ours.

Chapter Thirty-nine

It was late by the time Ellen got Will home, having had dinner at the clubhouse with her father. Will and his repertoire of napkin antics had been the focus of attention during the meal, which had helped her forget about Timothy Braverman, at least temporarily. She wondered if God had intended children to provide such a service for alleged adults. We were supposed to be taking care of them, not the other way around.

She read Will a few books before bed and tucked him in, then went downstairs to close up the kitchen. The cardboard box of her mother's things sat on the butcher-block counter, and Oreo Figaro crouched next to it, sniffling it in his tentative way, his black nose bobbing to and from the box.

Ellen stroked his back, feeling the bumpiness of his skinny spine, regarding the box with a stab of sadness. It was so small, not even a two-foot square. Could a mother be so easily disposed of? Could one mother be so quickly traded for another?

You could swap 'em out, and nobody would know the difference.

Ellen opened the lid of the box, and Oreo Figaro jumped from the counter in needless alarm. Stacked inside the box was a set of photographs in various frames, and the top one was an eight-by-ten color photo of her parents at their wedding. She picked it up, setting aside her emotions. In the picture, her parents stood together under a tree, her father wearing a tux and his I-made-my-quota smile. Her mother's smile was sweet and shy, making barely a quarter moon on a delicate face, which was framed by short brown hair stiffened with Aqua Net. She had roundish eyes and a small, thin nose, like the tiny beak of a dime-store finch, and at only five-foot-one, Mary Gleeson seemed to recede in size, personality, and importance next to her larger-than-life husband.

Ellen set the photo aside and looked through the others, which only made it tougher not to feel sad. There was a picture of her parents in a canoe, with her father standing up in the boat and her mother laughing, but gripping the sides in fear. And there was another of them at a wedding, with her father spinning her mother on the end of his arm, like a puppeteer.

Ellen set the photo down. She remembered seeing it and the others at their house, and now they were all being exiled, along with that part of his life. She resolved to find a place for them here. No mother deserved to be forgotten, and certainly not hers.

She went to the cabinet under the sink, got a spray bottle of Windex and a paper towel, and wiped the dust from the top photo. She cleaned all of them, working her way to the end of the stack until she noticed that between two of the photos was a packet of greeting cards, bound by a rubber band. The top one was a fortieth wedding anniversary card, and she took out the packet and rolled off the rubber band. She opened the card, and it was from her father to her mother, the signature simply, Love, Don.

She smiled. That would be her father. He was never big in the elaboration department, and her mother would have been happy just to have the card, on time. Ellen went through the other cards, all saved by her mother, but the last envelope wasn't a greeting card. It was an envelope of her mother's stationery, the pale blue of the forget-me-nots that grew by their sugar maple in the backyard.