“No.”
“Did you interview the mother?”
“Yes. Only once.”
“When?”
Ellen could hardly remember. She rubbed her face. Everything before the white card was a blur, as if a line had been drawn down the middle of her life, dividing it into Before and After. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD? Her head hurt so much she felt dizzy. “Tuesday?”
“But I asked you not to.” Marcelo’s tone wasn’t disappointed, Ellen realized, but hurt.
“I’m so sorry. I just had to.”
“Why?”
“I was just curious, I had to see her again.” Ellen knew it sounded lame, and Marcelo looked grave, his eyebrows sloping down.
“Ellen, let’s be honest with one another. Ever since I let Courtney go, I feel you’ve been distant. You’ve acted differently toward me. It’s as if we’re on different sides.”
“No, we’re not, I swear.”
“Please, don’t work against me. We have too much work for anybody to be doing that. We’re doing more with less, and every day it gets worse.”
“I’m not working against you.”
“But all this fussing with Sarah, it’s not needed.”
“It won’t happen again.”
Marcelo finger-raked his hair from his forehead and fell silent a moment, eyeing her. “I can tell something’s wrong. You’re not yourself. Is it Will? I know he was sick when he was little. Is he sick again?”
“No.” Ellen couldn’t tell him anything, as much as she would have loved a sounding board. “I’ll have the story to you early next week. I said Friday because I wanted to be realistic.”
“Tell me what’s wrong,” Marcelo said again, his voice even softer. “You look tired.”
“I don’t feel that great.” Ellen winced inwardly. You look tired was code for you look ugly.
“Are you sick?”
“I threw up last night,” Ellen blurted out, then watched Marcelo’s eyes flare in brief surprise. Throwing up was definitely not hot, and suddenly she felt like a frigging mess. Doing and saying the wrong things, exhausted and undone. “I should just go home. I really don’t feel well at all.”
“Okay, that’s fine, of course.” Marcelo nodded, walking around his desk toward her. “If you’re sick, you must go home. Take care of yourself.”
“Right, thanks.” Ellen moved to the door, feeling oddly dizzy. She broke out into a sweat. Her head was light. She hadn’t had time for breakfast. Even Connie had looked at her funny.
And in the next second, the office went black.
Chapter Thirty-five
“Surprise, I’m home!” Ellen called out from the doorway, slipping out of her coat. The living room was bright and peaceful, with a winter sun streaming through the windows, and the sight brought her back to reality, after having fainted in Marcelo’s office. She’d blamed it on her mystery illness when she regained consciousness in his arms, their faces close enough to kiss. Or maybe she had imagined that part.
“Mommy!” Will zoomed from the dining room, his rubbery sneakers thundering on the soft pine floors.
“Honey!” Ellen let her coat fall to scoop him up and give him a big hug, and Connie came out of the kitchen, looking pleased. She was dressed to go to Happy Valley for the weekend in her Penn State wear, gray stretch slacks and a blue Nittany Lions sweatshirt.
“Hi, El. Is there much ice on the road?”
“No, and thanks for shoveling the walk.”
“That’s all right. Will helped.”
“Good for you, sweetie.” Ellen set Will down, and he hit the ground moving. She had called Connie on the way home, telling her she was taking the day off, though she’d edited out the fainting. “No school today, huh?”
“No, Mommy. We read four books!” Will held up four fingers, and Ellen grinned.
“Good for you!”
Connie said, “I don’t know why they closed. It’s a gyp, for what you pay.”
“It’s all right.” Ellen smiled at Will, cupping his warm head. “I wanna have some fun, don’t you, honey?”
“Fun!” Will started jumping up and down, and Ellen laughed.
“How about sledding? Is that fun?”
“YES!” Will shouted, jumping like crazy.
“Good idea.” Connie reached for her coat, purse, and tote. “TGIF, hey?”
“Exactly.” Ellen smiled, glad to give her the time off after she’d been working so hard. “Who are we playing this weekend?”
“Nobody as good as we are.”
“So we’re winning?”
“Of course. Mark might even start.” Connie grinned.
“Go Lions!” Ellen raised a fist, and Will did, too, still jumping. She stroked his silky hair, beginning to feel better. “Will, say good-bye and thank you to Connie.”
“Good-bye, Mommy!” Will shouted, throwing his arms around Connie’s legs, and Ellen cringed.
“See ya later,” Connie said, bending over and hugging Will back.
“Alligator,” he replied, his face buried in her coat, and Ellen opened the door while Connie left, waving happily.
Ellen closed the door behind her with a grin for Will. “Hey, pal, did you eat lunch yet?”
“No.”
“Me neither. How about we eat and then go sledding?”
“Sledding!”
“Not yet.” Ellen glanced at the dining-room table, covered with crayons and coloring books. “Go pick up those crayons, please, and I’ll get lunch ready. Okay, buddy?”
“Okay, Mommy!” Will ran into the dining room and thundered into the kitchen, where she could hear the scrape of the footstool as he pulled it up to the counter. Oreo Figaro jumped down from the couch with his characteristic chirp, and she bent over to pet him hello, then felt her BlackBerry vibrating on her waistband. She took the BlackBerry from its holster, and the screen showed a red asterisk next to the email.
She hit the button. The email was from twinzmom373, Cheryl Martin. Ellen felt her chest tighten. She opened the email and read:
Ellen,
I sent Amy an email about you and told her your email address. I’ll let you know if I hear from her, but don’t hold your breath. Hope your son gets better. Sorry I couldn’t help more.
Best,
Cheryl
Ellen bit her lip, her gaze lingering on the tiny screen. At least Cheryl had gotten through to Amy. If the email hadn’t bounced back, it was still a good email address. She’d have to hope for the best, but in the meantime, she was back to Before and After. Either the carjacker was Beach Man or he wasn’t. Two choices. Do or die.
“Mommy, I’m done!” Will called from the dining room. He was kneeling on a chair, trying to hold a logjam of crayons. They were dropping everywhere, and Oreo Figaro was chewing Burnt Sienna.
“Let me help, honey.” Ellen got up, putting the BlackBerry away.
During lunch, she tried to tuck her anxiety away in the back of her brain, but it kept coming to the fore, even as she got Will dressed in his snowsuit and retrieved the orange plastic saucer from the basement. She slid into her coat and took him in one hand and the saucer in the other, then went outside in the cold sun, inhaling a deep lungful of fresh air.
“Freezing, Mommy!” Will said, his breath making tiny puffs in the frigid air.
“Look, your breath looks like a little train. You’re Thomas the Tank Engine.”
Will giggled. “Choo-choo!”
“Here we go!” Ellen scanned the street, which was covered with a soft snow that blanketed the rooftops, filled the rain gutters, and lined the porch steps. The houses, mostly stone or clapboard, sat close together, and many of them shared driveways, like freshly shoveled Ys. Narberth was a stop-time neighborhood, where everybody looked out for each other.
They were making their way down the porch steps when Ellen realized something. Her neighbors must have gotten the white card in the mail, showing the photo of Timothy Braverman. They could have noticed how much he looked lik
e Will, and everyone on the street knew that Will was adopted. They had all read her series, and she had even thrown a welcoming party for him when he was well enough. She used to be glad that Narberth was so chummy, but that was Before. After, it terrified her. She squeezed Will’s hand.
“Ow, too tight, Mommy.” He looked up in surprise, stiff in his puffy blue coat and snow pants, his arms sticking out like a gingerbread man.
“Sorry.” Ellen eased her grip, shaken. She looked up and down her block, worried about running into her neighbors.
Two doors away, Mrs. Knox, an older woman, was brushing snow from her sidewalk, and on the far side of the street, stay-at-home moms Elena Goldblum and Barbara Capozzi were talking while their kids played in the snow. All of them could have seen the white card, especially the moms. Ellen stood frozen on the sidewalk.
“Mommy?” Will asked. “Are we going?”
“I’m just looking at the street. It’s so pretty with the snow, isn’t it?”
“Go!” Will tugged her hand, but Ellen’s thoughts raced ahead. They always went sledding a few blocks away at Shortridge Park, and the place would be packed with Will’s friends, their mothers, and the occasional stay-at-home dad, probably Domenico Vargas, who usually brought an old-fashioned plaid thermos of Ec ua dor ian coffee. All of them would have gotten the white card.
“Will, guess what?” Ellen knelt to see him at eye level and held him by the shoulder. His face was a circle of adorable features—those blue eyes under a pale fringe of feathery bangs, upturned nose, broad smile—framed by the drawstring of his hood. “Today, how about we go to a new place to sled?”
“Where?” Will frowned.
“Valley Forge. I used to sled there when I was growing up. Did I ever tell you about that? I loved it there.”
“What about Brett?” Will’s lower lip puckered. “Is he there?”
“No, but we can tell him how great it is. It’s good for a change. Why don’t we give it a try?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Let’s try it. We’ll have fun.” Ellen straightened up, took him by the hand, and walked him over to the car before he could object. She got her keys from her pocket, chirped the back door unlocked, hoisted him into his car seat, and locked him in, kissing his cold nose. “This will be an adventure.”
Will nodded, uncertain. “We didn’t say good-bye to Oreo Figaro.”
“He’ll forgive us.” Ellen closed the car door, stuck the saucer in the trunk, and was going to the driver’s side when Mrs. Knox appeared from nowhere in her black down coat, cackling.
“I know what you’re up to!” she said, pointing with a red leather glove. “You’re playin’ hooky!”
“You got that right.” Ellen opened the car door and got in. “It’s a snow day for grown-ups, too. Gotta go!”
“Why’re you drivin’ to Shortridge? It’s only around the corner.”
“See you!” Ellen shut the door, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway, giving a disappointed Mrs. Knox a last wave.
“Mommy?” Will said from the backseat.
“What?”
“Connie doesn’t like Mrs. Knox.”
“Really?” Ellen backed out of the driveway and adjusted the rearview mirror to see him. He looked stuffed into the car seat, immobilized. “Why not?”
“Connie says Mrs. Knox is a busy-busy.”
“A what?” Ellen steered the car down the street. “You mean a busybody?”
“Yes!” Will giggled.
Ellen hit the gas, hard.
Chapter Thirty-six
An hour later Ellen was still driving through Valley Forge Park, trying to find the sledding hill she remembered. She’d checked her BlackBerry at a few traffic lights on the way, but Amy Martin hadn’t emailed yet. The road wound through snow-covered log cabins and lines of black cannons, passing George Washington’s encampment from the Revolutionary War, but she had stopped pointing out the historical sites to an increasingly cranky three-year-old, kicking in his car seat.
“I’m hot. My coat is hot.” Will pulled at his zipper, and Ellen steered right, then left, and finally spotted a packed parking lot.
“We’re here!”
“Yay!”
“This is gonna be great!” Ellen turned into the lot and found a space next to a station wagon that disgorged a slew of teenage boys. The tallest one undid the bright bungee cords that fastened a wooden toboggan to the roof rack.
“He’s a big boy!” Will craned his neck.
“He sure is.” Ellen shut off the ignition, and the teenager slid the toboggan onto his head, where he struggled to balance it. The other teenagers hooted when it dipped like a seesaw.
“He’s gonna drop it! Watch out!” Will squealed with delight. “Mommy, what is that thing on him?”
“It’s called a toboggan. It’s like our saucer.” Ellen put on her sunglasses and gloves. “It goes down the hill.”
“Why doesn’t he have a saucer?”
“He must like a toboggan better.”
“Why don’t we have it?”
“Someday we will, if you want one. Now, let’s rock.” Ellen got out of the car, went around to his side, and freed Will from his car seat. He reached for her with his fingers outstretched, then wrapped his arms around her neck when she held him.
“I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you, too, sweetie.” Ellen set him down and took his hand, then went to the trunk and got the saucer. Laughter and shouting came from the hill on the other side of the road, the sound echoing in the cold, crisp air, and she and Will walked through the plowed parking lot, rock salt crunching under their boots. The teenage boys crossed the street ahead of them, but there was such a crowd on the other side that Ellen couldn’t see the hill.
“Isn’t this fun, Will?” Ellen held Will’s hand as they crossed.
“So many people!”
“That’s because they know it’s a good place to sled.” Ellen surveyed the view beyond the crowd, a gorgeous vista of snowy evergreens, stone houses, and horse farms surrounding the park. The sky was a cloudless blue, and the sun pale gold, and distant. “Isn’t this pretty?”
“Very pretty,” he answered agreeably, but Ellen realized he couldn’t see anything for the kids in front of him, so she picked him up.
“How’s that? Better?”
“Oooh! Pretty!”
“Here we go!” Ellen dragged the saucer by its rope and threaded her way through the crowd, noticing that they were older than she’d expected, high school and even college kids in Villanova hoodies. She and Will reached the front of the crowd and looked out over the hill, and Ellen hid her dismay. The hill was much steeper than she remembered it, if it was even the same hill. It dropped off as steeply as an intermediate ski slope, and the snow had been packed hard by the sledding, so its surface glistened, icy-hard.
“Mom, whoa!” Will shouted, blinking. “This is so BIG!”
“I’ll say.” Ellen watched with concern as the teenagers shot down the hill on sleds, toboggans, and inflatable rafts, laughing and screaming. Two rafts collided on a mogul, and boys popped out and went skidding downhill. It looked dangerous. “This is kind of big for us, honey.”
“No, Mom, we can do it!” Will wiggled in her arms.
“I’m not so sure.” Ellen was jostled by a snowboarder, who shouted an apology before he launched himself down the hill. She scanned the slope for younger children, but didn’t see a one. She wanted to kick herself. They could have been having fun at Shortridge, but she had dragged him to Mount Everest.
“Now, Mom, put me down!”
“Okay, but hold my hand and let’s move over, out of the way.” Ellen set him down, and they moved aside. The hill didn’t get less steep at the edge, but the crowd lessened. A brutal wind bit her cheeks, and her toes were already freezing. She looked ahead to a tree line of evergreens and scrub pines, and beyond them was a slope that was gentler, with only a few teenagers. “Wait, I think I see a bette
r place for us.”
“Why can’t we sled here?”
“Because it’s better there. Hold on to my hand.”
Will ignored her and bolted ahead, along the icy crest.
“No, Will!” Ellen shouted, lunging forward and catching him by the snowsuit. “Don’t do that! It’s dangerous!”
“Mommy, I can do it! You said! I can do it!”
“No, we’re going down the hill over there, so please be patient.”
“I am PATIENT!” he yelled, and a group of teenagers burst into laughter. Will looked over, wounded, and Ellen felt terrible for him.
“Come here, sweetie.” She took his hand and they walked with effort, dragging the saucer to the other hill, where they stood at the top, both of them sizing it up in silence. It was less of an incline, but no baby hill, like Shortridge.
“Let’s go, Mommy!”
“Okay, we’ll go together.”
“No! I wanna do it by myself!”
“Not here, pal.”
“Why can’t I go by myself?” “It’s better if I go with you.” Ellen placed the saucer on the ground and plopped into it cross-legged, yanking her coat under her butt. Wind whipped across the hill, and she pushed up her sunglasses as Will climbed onto the saucer and stuffed himself into her lap. She wrapped her arms around him like a seat belt, steeling herself. “We can do this.”
“Go, Mommy, go! Like him!” Will was looking at another snow-boarder in a red fleece dragon hat, about to go down the hill.
“Hold on to my arms, tight as you can. Keep your legs inside.” Ellen gritted her teeth and paddled to give them a running start, setting the saucer sliding down the hill. “Ready, set, go!”
“Whooooo!” Will shouted, then Ellen started shouting too, holding him as tightly as she could until the saucer started spinning. All she could do was yell and hang on to him, watching the world fly by in a blur of snow, sky, trees, and people, completely out of control. Ellen prayed for the ride to be over and clung to Will as he screamed, and finally the saucer slowed toward the bottom of the hill, where they and the snowboarder hit a hard bump that jarred them all loose and sent them sliding downhill.