"Tell it right, Mommy."

Ellen got back on track. She'd been distracted, thinking about Timothy Braverman. "So the mommy said to the nurse, "I really love this baby a whole lot and I want to take him home," and they said okay, and the mommy adopted the little boy, and they lived happily ever after." Ellen hugged him close. "And I do. I love you very much."

"I love you, too."

"That makes it perfect. And oh, yeah, they got a cat."

"Oreo Figaro's head is on my foot."

"He's telling you he loves you. Also that he's sorry about before."

"He's a good cat."

"A very good cat," Ellen said, giving Will another squeeze. He fell silent, and in time she could feel his skin cool and his limbs relax.

She remained in the dark bedroom, listening to the occasional hiss of the radiator and looking at a ceiling covered with phosphorescent stars that glowed W. Her gaze fell to shelves full of toys and games, and a window with the white plastic shade pulled down. On the walls, cartoon elephants lumbered along in a line, knockoff Babars holding onto each other's tails and balancing one-legged on bandbox stands. She had put the wallpaper up herself, with the radio blasting hip-hop. It was the child's room she'd always dreamed of, ready just in time to bring Will home from the hospital.

Her gaze returned to the WILL constellation, and she tried to count her blessings, but failed. Until that damn white card had come in the mail, she'd been happier than she'd imagined she ever could be. She hugged Will gently, but her thoughts wandered back down the hall. Then she got another idea, one that wouldn't wait.

She eased Will from her chest and shifted out of bed, clumsily because of the stupid guardrail. She got up, covered him with his thermal blanket, and padded out of the room on fleece socks.

Oreo Figaro raised his head and watched her sneak off.

Ellen went into her home office, flicked on the overhead light, and sat down at her fake-wood workstation, a floor sample from Staples that held an old Gateway computer and monitor. The room was tiny enough that the Realtor had called it a "sewing room," and it barely accommodated the workstation, an underused stationary bicycle, and mismatched file cabinets containing household files, research, appliance manuals, and old clippings Ellen kept in case she had to get a new job.

I'll have to cut one more by the end of the month.

Ellen sat down, opened her email, and wrote Courtney an email telling her she loved her, then logged on to Google and typed in Timothy Braverman. The search yielded 129 results. She raised an eyebrow; it was more than she'd expected. She clicked on the first relevant link, and it was a newspaper story from last year. The headline read, CORAL BRIDGE MOM KEEPS HOPE ALIVE, and Ellen skimmed the lead:

Carol Braverman is waiting for a miracle, her son Timothy to come home. Timothy, who would now be two-and-a-half years old, was kidnapped during a carjacking and is still missing.

"I know I'll see my son again," she told this reporter. "I just feel it inside."

It sounded like what Susan Sulaman had said. Ellen read on, and another paragraph caught her eye.

Asked to describe Timothy in one word, Carol's eyes misted over, then she said that her son was "strong." "He could get through anything, even as a baby. He was smaller than most one-year-olds, but he never acted it. At his first birthday party, all of the other babies were bigger, but nobody got the best of him."

She printed the interview, then went back to the Google search and read the line of links, scanning each piece on the Braverman kidnapping. There was a lot of press, and she contrasted it with Susan Sulaman, who had to go begging to keep the police interested. She learned from the articles that Timothy's father, Bill Braverman, was an investment manager, and his mother had been a teacher until her marriage, when she stopped to devote herself to being a mother and doing good works, including fund-raising for the American Heart Association.

The Heart Association?

Ellen saved the articles, logged on to Google Images, searched under Carol and Bill Braverman, then clicked the first link. A picture appeared on the screen, showing three couples in elegant formal wear, and her eye went immediately to the woman in the middle of the photo.

My God.

Ellen checked the caption. The woman was Carol Braverman. Carol looked so much like Will, she could easily have been his mother. The photo was dark and the focus imperfect, but Carol had blue eyes the shape and color of Will's. Her hair was wavy and dark blond, almost his color, and she wore it long, curling to her tanned shoulders in a slinky black dress. Ellen scanned Bill Braverman's face, and he was conventionally handsome, with brown eyes and a nose that was straight and on the small side, a lot like Will's. His smile was broad, easy, and confident, the grin of a successful man.

Her stomach clenched. She closed the photo, went back to Google, and clicked the second link, which retrieved another group picture in shorts and T-shirts at a poolside party. The photo was dark, too, taken at night, but Carol's hair had been cut around her ears in a boyish style that made her look even more like W. And Bill's body looked lean but cut, with muscular arms and legs that showed the same wiry build that Will had.

"This is crazy," Ellen said aloud. She shoved the computer mouse away, got up from her chair, and went to the first file cabinet. She slid open the top drawer, moved the green Pendaflex files aside, skipping folders hand-labeled Bank Statements, Car Payments, Deed, until she found the Will file. She slid the file out, took it back to her chair, and opened it on her lap.

On top were folded clippings of the series she'd done on the CICU nurses, then the one she did on adopting W. She leafed through them, pausing at an early photo of Will in his crib. The paper had run it on the first page, and Will looked nothing like himself then, so thin and sick. She moved it aside, shooing away the memories. Finally she found Will's adoption papers and slid out the packet.

At the top of the final adoption decree, it read, "The Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Orphans' Court Division," and the order was in bold: "The Court hereby orders and decrees that the request for adoption is hereby approved and that the above-captioned adoptee is hereby adopted by Ellen Gleeson."

She felt satisfied, in an official sort of way. Will's adoption was all sewn up, legal, certified, and irrevocable. The court proceedings had been routine, and she had appeared on the second floor of the courthouse in Norristown, for the first time in public with W. The judge had pounded the gavel, then issued the decree from the bench with a broad smile. She would never forget his words:

I have the only happy courtroom in the entire courthouse.

It gladdened her to remember that day, holding baby Will in her arms, her first day as a mother. She read the decree again. "The needs and welfare of ADOPTEE will be promoted by approval of this adoption and all requirements of the Adoption Act have been met." So her adoption was a done deal, and it was closed, meaning that she didn't know the identity of the birth mother and father. They had consented to relinquish their parental rights, and their written consent forms had been submitted to the court by Ellen's lawyer, as part of the adoption papers. The lawyer's name and address were at the bottom of the page:

Karen Batz, Esq.

Ellen remembered Karen well. Her office was in Ardmore, fifteen minutes away, and she had been a smart, competent family lawyer who had guided her through the adoption process without overcharging her, the thirty-thousand-dollar fee in line with a standard private adoption. Karen had told her that the birth mother was thrilled to find someone with the desire and the means to care for such a sick child, and that taking a sick baby would be her best chance to adopt as a single mother. Even the judge had commented on the unusual facts of the case: