“NO!” Ellen shouted, as Will pinwheeled past her on his back, and when she finally stopped herself, she jumped to her feet and straggled down the hill after him.
“WILL!” she screamed, on the run. She reached him and fell to the ground beside him, but he was laughing so hard that he couldn’t catch his breath, his smile as broad as his face, his arms and legs flat against the snow, like a starfish on the sea floor.
“Way to go, dude!” The snowboarder clapped his gloves together, and Will squealed.
“I wanna do it again, Mommy!”
Ellen almost cried with relief, and the snowboarder eyed her warily from under his dragon hat.
“Lady,” he said. “You need to calm down. Seriously.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Ellen trudged along the top of the hill carrying Will, who was crying and hollering in a full-blown tantrum. Teenagers hid their smiles as they passed, one young girl covered her ears with her mittens, and another looked over in annoyance. Ellen had long ago stopped being embarrassed by temper tantrums. She flipped it and wore it like a badge of honor. A temper tantrum was a sign that a mom said no when it counted.
“I want to . . . go again!” Will sobbed, tears staining his cheeks, snot running freely from his nose. “Again!”
“Will, try to calm down, honey.” Ellen’s head pounded at his screaming, and teenagers packed the hill, shouting and laughing, adding to the din. She sidestepped to avoid two older boys shoving each other, and she accidentally dropped the rope to the saucer.
“Mommy! Please! I want . . . to!”
“Oh no!” Ellen yelped, turning around, but before she could catch the saucer, it went spinning down the icy slope. She had no choice but to let it go. She needed to get both of them home and down for naps.
“I can . . . do it myself!” Will wailed.
“Please, honey, settle down. Everything’s going to be all right.” She finally reached the car, where she stuffed Will into his car seat, jumped behind the steering wheel, and pulled out of the parking lot with his crying reverberating in her ears.
“I . . . can, Mommy! I wanna go again!”
“It’s too dangerous, honey. We can’t.”
“Again! Again!”
Ellen left Valley Forge Park, looking for the route back into the city. Traffic was congested because the Friday rush hour was beginning early, due to the snow. She slowed through the intersection, trying to read the route signs, which were confusing. Routes 202 and 411 were so close to each other, and horns honked behind her.
“I want to do it . . . again!” Will cried. “We only went one time!”
“We’ll go home, and I’ll make some hot chocolate. How about that? You love hot chocolate.”
“Please . . . Mommy, please, again!”
“When you’re older,” Ellen said, but she knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment the words escaped her lips.
“I’M A BIG BOY!” Will howled, and Ellen didn’t rebuke him, knowing it was disappointment and fatigue, a kiddie Molotov cocktail. She took a left turn, looking for the highway entrance when suddenly she heard the loud blare of a siren.
“Is it a fire truck, Mommy?” Will’s sobbing slowed at the prospect, and Ellen checked the rearview mirror.
A state police cruiser was right behind her, flashing its high beams. She blinked, startled. She hadn’t even known he was there. She said, “Perfect.”
“What, Mommy?”
“It’s a police car.” Ellen didn’t know what she had done. She’d been driving slow enough. Her headache returned, full blast. She waited for traffic to part and pulled over to the shoulder, with the police cruiser following.
“Why, Mom?” Will sniffled.
“I’m not sure, but everything’s okay.”
“Why do they make that sound?”
“So you know they’re there.”
“Why are they there?”
Ellen sighed inwardly. “Maybe I went too fast. We’ll find out in a minute.”
“Why did you?”
“Just rest, sweetie, don’t worry.” Ellen waited as the cruiser door opened and a tall cop emerged and walked along the side of her car, holding a small clipboard. She pressed the button to lower the window, letting in a blast of cold air. “Yes, Officer?”
“License and registration, please.”
“Oh no.” Ellen realized that she had neither, because she hadn’t taken her purse. She had been going to Shortridge before she changed the plan. She took off her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes. “This isn’t my day. I left the house without them.”
The cop frowned. He was young, with light eyes under the wide brim of his brown hat, worn pitched forward. “You don’t have any ID on you?”
“Sorry, no. It’s at home, I swear it. What did I do?”
“You ran a stop.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see it. I was looking for the sign into Philly.”
“What did you do, Mommy?” Will called out, and the cop bent from the waist and eyed Will through the open window.
Ellen felt a bolt of panic, out of nowhere. What if the state police had a registry of kidnapped kids? What if there was an Amber Alert out for Timothy Braverman? What if the cops got those white cards? What if the cop somehow recognized Will as Timothy? Ellen didn’t know if the questions were paranoid or not, but couldn’t stop them from coming.
“Cute kid,” the cop said, unsmiling.
“Thanks.” Ellen gripped the steering wheel, her heart beginning to thump.
“He looks unhappy,” the cop said, his breath foggy in the frigid air. His gaze remained on Will, and Ellen told herself to stay calm. She was acting like a criminal and she hadn’t done anything wrong.
“He’s just tired.”
“I’M NOT TIRED, MOMMEEEE!” Will screamed.
“I got a nephew hollers like that.” The cop finally cracked a smile. “All right, Miss, this is your lucky day. I’ll let you slide on the license but don’t make a habit of it, we clear?”
“Yes, thank you, Officer,” Ellen said, hearing the tremor in her own voice.
“Eyes front when you’re driving, and no cell phones.”
“I will, I swear. Thanks.”
“Good-bye now, and be careful pulling out.” The cop backed away from the car, and Ellen pressed the button to raise the window. She exhaled with relief as the cop rejoined the line of traffic, then she checked the rearview mirror. Will was falling asleep, his head listing to the side and his cheeks glistening with tear tracks, like tiny snail trails.
She looked for an opening in traffic, then pulled back onto the highway. Her forehead felt damp but her heartbeat was returning to normal. She fought the impulse to check her BlackBerry, but part of her knew that Amy Martin wouldn’t be emailing her anytime soon.
Her head hurt, and she wished for the umpteenth time that her mother were still alive. She needed to talk to someone about Timothy Braverman, and her mother would have known what to do and what to think.
Ellen felt like she was losing her grip. Fainting in the office. Blowing her deadline. She could lose her job to Sarah if she didn’t get her act together. She needed a saner head to prevail.
The traffic started to move, and she accelerated.
She had a new destination in mind.
Chapter Thirty-eight
“Hey, Dad,” Ellen said, closing the front door behind them.
“Pops!” Will raised his arms to her father, revitalized after his long nap in the car. Given the traffic, it had taken over an hour to get to West Chester.
“My little buddy!!” Her father’s face lit up, his hooded eyes alive with animation. “What a nice surprise! Come here, you!” He reached for Will, who jumped into his arms, wrapping his legs around him like a little monkey.
“Dad, careful of your back,” Ellen said, though her father looked fine, his face only slightly red.
“Are you kiddin’? This makes my day! I missed my grandson!”
Will hung on tig
ht. “Pops, I went down the big hill!”
“Tell me all about it,” her father said, carrying Will into the living room. Ellen took off her hat and coat, set them on the chair, and looked around. The rug was rolled up, leaving a dull yellow square on the hardwood floor, and cardboard boxes sat stacked all over.
“We only went down the hill one time, and Mommy wouldn’t let us go down again.” Will held up an index finger while her father set him down, then unzipped his coat, tugged it off, and tossed it aside, leaving the sleeves inside out.
“Why wouldn’t she, Willy Billy?”
“She said it was too big.”
“She’s so mean!” Her father stuck his tongue out at Ellen, which sent Will into gales of laughter.
“Hope this isn’t a bad time.” She gestured at the boxes. “Did we catch you in the middle of packing?”
“Nah.” Her father carried Will over to the couch and sat with him in his lap. “Barbara did all that. She’s finished for today.”
“You didn’t put the house up yet, did you? I didn’t see a sign.”
“Nah, but it’ll go fast. Frank Ferro was asking me about it already.” Her father gestured to a small cardboard box on top of the TV. “That one has some things from your mother, pictures and whatnot. You might want to take it home.”
“Sure, thanks,” Ellen said, caught off-balance at the notion of Barbara, packing her mother into a box.
“Where’s my Thomas the Tank Engine?” Will asked, looking around in bewilderment. The toy box that had been tucked in the corner was gone.
“I got the horse right here,” her father answered. He got up, took Will by the hand, and crossed him to a large cardboard box, with the top flaps open. “Look inside, cowpoke. The gang’s all here.”
“My truck!” Will dug in the box, pulled out a red truck, and knelt and zoomed it back and forth on the floor, where its hard plastic tires made a satisfyingly rumbling sound.
Ellen said, “Will, I’m going to talk to Pop in the kitchen.”
“Be right back, pal,” her father said, straightening up, and they went into the kitchen, where her father leaned against the counter and faced her. He crossed his arms in a pale yellow golf sweater and khakis, with a smile. “God love that kid.”
“I know.”
“He got so big! He grows like a weed.”
“He sure does.”
“You gotta bring him over more, El. Barbara’s dyin’ to meet him.”
“I will.”
“He’s so much smarter than her grandkids. They hardly talk, and him, you can’t shut up!”
Ellen laughed, marveling at the emotion Will always brought out in her father. He became a different man when Will was around, and she loved it. Just not now. She had called him for a reason. “Dad, I need to talk to you.”
“Sure. Right. What’s on your mind, kiddo?”
“This is going to sound strange, so prepare yourself.” Ellen lowered her voice, though Will was out of earshot. “What if I told you that Will might really be a boy named Timothy Braverman, who was kidnapped from a family in Florida, two years ago?”
“What?” Her father’s eyes widened, and Ellen filled him in quickly, starting with the white card, going through to the composite drawing, and ending with the visits to Gerry and Cheryl. They were interrupted twice by Will, and Ellen sent him back to the toy box with a foil bag of potato chips, always a handy bribe.
“So, what do you think?” she asked, when she was finished.
“What do I think?” Her father looked mystified. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“I think you’re just like your mother.”
“What does that mean?” Ellen felt resentment flicker like an ember in her chest.
“It means you’re a worrywart. You worry too much!”
“How am I worrying too much?”
He shrugged. “You dreamed this up. It’s crazy.”
“I’m not crazy, Dad.”
“But you don’t have any facts. You only have assumptions.” Her father frowned, making deep wrinkles in his forehead. “You’re assuming lots of things that may or may not be true. I’m surprised at you, a newspaperwoman.”
Ellen hadn’t heard that term in years. “What are the assumptions?”
“You can’t tell anything from those stupid cards about the missing kids. I get them, too.”
“Did you see the last one, with Timothy Braverman?”
“Who the hell knows? They’re junk mail. I toss them out.”
“Why? They’re real people, real kids.”
“They have nothing to do with me, or you. Or my grandson.”
Ellen tried another tack. “Okay, remember that photo I showed you, last time I was here?”
“No.”
“You said it was Will. You thought it was Will. Remember?”
He frowned. “Okay, whatever.”
“It wasn’t Will, it was Timothy Braverman. You thought it was Will.”
“What was that, a trick, then?”
“No, Dad. Keep an open mind. I need you to take this seriously.”
“But I can’t. It’s just silly.”
“Dad.” Ellen touched his arm, the cashmere soft under her finger-tips, and the tight line of his mouth softened just a little. “It wasn’t a trick, but the photo wasn’t Will. 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 Will. 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 wor
ked 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 Will.”
“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.