А Финн - The Woman in the Window

I say nothing, merely gaze at him. My heart is going wild, like a trapped fly. I fold my hands in my lap to keep them from trembling.

He whispers.

“What?”

Clears his throat. “When did you find that?”

“Tonight, right before I called you.”

A nod.

“Who is she?”

He’s still looking at the phone. For a moment I think he hasn’t heard me.

“Who is—”

“She’s my mother.”

I frown. “No, the detective said that your mother—”

“My real mother. Biological.”

I stare. “You’re adopted?”

He says nothing, just nods again, eyes cast low.

“So . . .” I lean forward, rake my hands through my hair. “So . . .”

“She— I don’t even know how to begin.”

I close my eyes, push my confusion aside. He needs to be guided. This I can do.

I angle my body toward him, smooth the robe along my thighs, look at him. “When were you adopted?” I ask.

He sighs, sits back, the cushions exhaling beneath his weight. “When I was five.”

“Why so late?”

“Because she was an—she was on drugs.” Halting, like a foal taking its first steps. I wonder how many times he’s said it before. “She was on drugs and really young.”

That explains why Jane looked so youthful.

“So I went to live with my mom and dad.” I study his face, the tip of tongue glossing his lips, the shimmer of rain at his temples.

“Where did you grow up?” I ask.

“Before Boston?”

“Yes.”

“San Francisco. That’s where my parents got me.”

I resist the impulse to touch him. Instead I take the phone from his hand, set it on the table.

“She found me once,” he continues. “When I was twelve. She found us in Boston. She showed up at the house and asked my dad if she could see me. He said no.”

“So you didn’t get to talk to her?”

“No.” He pauses, breathes deep, his eyes bright. “My parents were so mad. They told me that if she ever tried to see me again—that I should tell them.”

I nod, sit back. He’s speaking freely now.

“And then we moved here.”

“But your father lost his job.”

“Yeah.” Wary.

“Why was that?”

He fidgets. “Something with his boss’s wife. I don’t know. They were screaming about it a lot.”

It’s all super- mysterious, Alex had gloated. Now I know. A little affair. Nothing special. I wonder if it was worth it.

“Right after we moved in, my mom went back to Boston to take care of some stuff. And to get away from my dad, I think. And then he went up. They left me alone, just for the night. They’d done it before. And she showed up.”

“Your birth mother?”

“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

He sniffles. Swipes at his nose. “Katie.”

“And she came to your house.”

“Yeah.” Another sniffle.

“When? Exactly?”

“I don’t remember.” Shaking his head. “No, wait—it was Halloween.”

The night I met her.

“She told me she was . . . ‘clean,’” he says, pinching the word like it’s a wet towel. “She wasn’t doing drugs anymore.”

I nod.

“She said she’d read about my dad’s transfer online and found out we were moving to New York. So she followed us here. And she was waiting to decide what to do when my parents left for Boston.” He pauses, scratches one hand with the other.

“And what happened then?”

“And then . . .” His eyes are shut now. “Then she came to the house.”

“And you spoke to her?”

“Yeah. I let her in.”

“This was Halloween?”

“Yeah. During the day.”

“I met her that afternoon,” I say.

He nods into his lap. “She went to get a photo album at her hotel. She wanted to show me some old pictures. Baby pictures and stuff. And then on her way back to the house she saw you.”

I think of her arms around my waist, her hair brushing my cheek. “But she introduced herself to me as your mother. Your—as Jane Russell.”

Again he nods.

“You knew this.”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Why would she tell me she was someone she wasn’t?”

Finally he looks at me. “She said she didn’t. She said that you called her by my mom’s name, and she couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough. She wasn’t supposed to be there, remember.” He gestures around the room. “She wasn’t supposed to be here .” Pauses, scratching his hand again. “Plus I think she liked pretending she was—you know. My mom.”

A crack of thunder, as though the sky is breaking. We both start.

After a moment I press him. “So what happened next? After she helped me?”

He turns his gaze to his fingers. “She came back to the house and we talked some more. About what I was like as a baby. About what she’d been doing since she gave me up. She showed me photos.”

“And then?”

“She left.”

“She went back to her hotel?”

Another shake of the head, slower.

“Where did she go?”

“Well, I didn’t know then.”

My stomach twinges. “Where did she go?”

Again he lifts his eyes to me. “She went here.”

The tick of the clock.

“What do you mean?”

“She met that guy who lives downstairs. Or used to live.”

I stare. “David?”

Now a nod.

I think of the morning after Halloween, how I’d heard water pushing through the pipes as David and I examined the dead rat. I think of the earring on his bedside table. It belonged to a lady named Katherine . Katie.

“She was in my basement,” I say.

“I didn’t know until after,” he insists.

“How long was she here?”

“Until . . .” His voice shrivels in his throat.

“Until what?”

Now he knots his fingers. “She came back the day after Halloween and we talked a little, and I said I’d tell my parents that I wanted to see her, like, officially. Because I’m almost seventeen and when I’m eighteen I can do whatever I want. So the next day I called my mom and dad and told them.

“My dad blew up,” he continues. “Like, my mom was mad, but my dad was furious . He came straight back and wanted to know where she was, and when I wouldn’t tell him, he . . .” A tear rolls from his eye.

I place a hand on his shoulder. “Did he hit you?” I ask.

He nods soundlessly. We sit in silence.

Ethan pulls a breath from the air, then another. “I knew she was with you,” he says shakily. “I saw you over there”—he looks at the kitchen—“from my room. I finally told him. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” He’s crying now.

“Oh . . .” I say, my hand hovering over his back.

“I just had to get him away from me.”

“I understand.”

“I mean . . .” He drags a finger beneath his nose. “I saw that she’d left your house. So I knew he wouldn’t find her. That’s when he came over here.”

“Yes.”

“I was watching you. I was praying he wouldn’t get mad at you.”

“No, he didn’t.” I just wanted to know if you’d had any visitors this evening, he’d explained. And later: I was looking for my son, not my wife . Lies.

“Then right after he got back home, she . . . she showed up again. She didn’t know he was there already. He was supposed to come back the next day. She rang the doorbell and he made me answer it and invite her in. I was so scared.”

I say nothing, just listen.

“We tried to talk to him. Both of us did.”

“In your parlor,” I murmur.

He blinks. “Did you see?”

“I saw.” I remember them there, Ethan and Jane—Katie—on the love seat, Alistair in a chair across from them. Who knows what goes on in a family?