Lisa Scottoline - Look Again

"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.

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.

Ellen knew what it was, instantly. She had gotten a note like that from her mother, too, written right before she died. The front of the envelope read, To Don. The envelope was still sealed, and she ran her fingertip along the back of the flap, double-checking. Her father had never opened the note.

Ellen didn't get it. Had he really not opened the note? Didn't he want to hear the last words of his wife, written after she knew she was going to die? She wasn't completely surprised, but she slid a nail under the envelope flap, and tugged the note out, its paper thick and heavy. The top flap bore her mother's embossed monogram, MEG, in a tangle of curlicues, and she opened the note, welling up at the sight of her mother's handwriting.

Dear Don,

I know that you have always loved me, even if you have forgotten it from time to time. Please know that I understand you, I accept you, and I forgive you.

Love always, Mary

Ellen took the note and went to sit down in the dining room. The house was still and quiet. Oreo Figaro was nowhere in sight. The windows were inky mirrors, the dark sky moonless. For an odd moment she felt as if she were suspended in blackness, connected to nothing in this world, not even Will, asleep upstairs. She held the note in her hand and closed her eyes, feeling its heavy paper beneath her fingers, letting it connect her to her mother through space and time. And at that moment, she knew what her mother would say about Will and Timothy, in that soft voice of hers. It was what she had written to Ellen in her final note.

Follow your heart.

And so there in the quiet room, Ellen finally let herself listen to her heart, which had been trying to tell her something from the moment she first got the card in the mail. Maybe her father thought it was crazy to worry, but inside, she knew better. She couldn't pretend any longer and she couldn't live the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. She couldn't feel like a criminal when a cop pulled her over. She couldn't hide Will from his friends and neighbors.

So she vowed to follow her heart.

Starting now.

Ellen entered the lawyer's office and took a seat, surrounded by bronze, glass, and crystal awards, like so many blunt instruments. She had met Ron Halpren when she did the series on Will's adoption, having interviewed him for his expertise on family law, and she counted herself lucky she could call on him on such short notice.

"Thanks for meeting me on a Saturday," she said, and Ron walked around his cluttered desk and eased into his creaky chair.

"That's okay, I'm in most Saturday mornings." Ron had light eyes behind tortoiseshell glasses, a halo of fuzzy gray hair, and a shaggy graying beard to match. His frame was short and pudgy, and he looked like Paddington Bear in his yellow fleece pullover and thick jeans. "Sorry we're out of coffee. I was supposed to bring it in, but I forgot."