Ellen remembered the name Cheryl Martin as the other signature on the consent form.

"This one's Amy, the baby of the family in more ways than one." Gerry tapped a smaller photo in the corner, and Ellen walked over, feeling a frisson of discovery.

"So this is Amy, huh?" She leaned close to the photo of a young girl, maybe thirteen years old, leaning on a red Firebird. Her dark blond hair was in cornrows, and her blue eyes were sly. She had a crooked grin that telegraphed too-cool-for-school, and Ellen scrutinized her features. Amy and Will had the same coloring, but their features weren't alike. Still, one picture wasn't a fair sample. "Which of the other photos are Amy?"

"Uh, lemme see." Gerry eyed the photos with a short laugh. "None! I tell you, by the time you get to your fourth, you're a little sick of it, you know what I mean?"

Arg. "I only have the one."

"Oh, after the first, you stop springing for the forty-five-dollar pictures, the refrigerator magnet, the keychain, all that happy horseshit." Gerry motioned to the couch again. "Come on, sit."

"Thanks." Ellen walked over, sank into the couch, and sipped the coffee, which was surprisingly good. "Wow."

"I put in real cream. That's my secret." Gerry sat down heavily, catty-corner to the couch, pulling an ancient beanbag ashtray onto the chair arm. Her expression looked softer, her hard lines smoothed by the low light. Her hair was a tinted brown with gray roots, the ends frayed, and she wore it tucked behind her ears. Her nose was stubby on a wide face, but she had a motherly smile.

"Why did you laugh outside?" Ellen asked, her fingers tight around her glass mug.

"First, tell me about Amy and this baby." Gerry took a drag on the brown cigarette.

"He was sick, in the hospital. I did a story on it, a series." Ellen reached into her purse, pulled out the clipping from her file, and showed it to Gerry, who barely glanced at it, so she put it back. "You may have seen them in the paper."

"We don't get the paper."

"Okay. Will, the baby I adopted, was in cardiac intensive care when I met him. He had a heart defect."

"And you think he was Amy's baby?"

"I know so."

"How?" Gerry sucked on her cigarette, then blew out a cone of smoke from the side of her mouth, meaning to be polite. "I mean, where'd you get your information?"

"From a lawyer, who died. My lawyer, mine and Amy's. It was a private adoption, and she brokered the deal between us."

"Amy brokered it?"

"No, the lawyer did. Karen Batz."

"It's a lady lawyer?"

"Yes. Does the name mean anything to you?"

Gerry shook her head. "You sure it's Amy? My Amy?"

"Yes." Ellen set the coffee down on the metal tray, reached into her envelope, and rifled through the papers. She found Amy's consent to the adoption and the letter with the Corinth Avenue return address and handed them to Gerry, who took them and didn't say anything for a minute, reading to herself and dragging on her cigarette. The smoke hit the court papers and billowed back on itself, like a wave crashing against a seawall.

"This is nuts," Gerry said, half to herself, and Ellen's chest tightened.

"Is that Amy's signature, on the consent?"

"It looks like it."

"How about on the letter?"

"There, too."

"Good. Now we're getting somewhere. So it's your Amy." Ellen reached over and turned the page to the consent form, pointing. "Is that your signature?"

"No way. I never signed this." Gerry's lips flattened to a grim line, again bringing out the wrinkles around her mouth. "And this other signature, it's not Cheryl's, either."

Ellen's heart sank. "Maybe Amy forged the signatures. Maybe she wanted to put her baby up for adoption and didn't want her family to know."

"That can't be it."

"Why not?" Ellen asked, and Gerry shook her head, the papers reflecting white on her face.

"Amy couldn't have kids."

Ellen's mouth went dry.

"She had an operation, when she was seventeen. She had a problem with her ovaries. What was it called?" Gerry paused a minute. "One day she woke up in cramps real bad, so I knew she wasn't fakin' to get outta school. We took her to the emergency and they said she had a twisted ovary, it was called. The ovary got all full of blood, and they had to take it out right away. They said she had almost no chance of getting pregnant."

Ellen tried to process it. "But not no chance. She still had one ovary left, right?"

"Yeah, but they said it was very, what did they say, unlikely she could have kids."

"But she had a child."

"I think if you take out an ovary, it affects the hormones, at least that's what they said, something like that, is all I remember." Gerry looked confused. "Whatever, if she had a kid, it's news to me."

"She didn't tell you?"

"No, like I said, we haven't talked. She didn't tell me nothin' anyway. I don't even know where she is. I was tellin' you the truth, outside."

Ellen couldn't accept that it was a dead end. "What about any of her sisters, or her brother? You never heard from any of them about her having a baby?"

"I don't think she talks to anybody but Cheryl, and she lives down in Delaware. I can call her and ask. I will, later." Gerry snorted, her nostrils emitting puffs of smoke. "Nice to know if I had another grandchild."

Ellen tried another tack. "Or maybe when the baby got really sick, that's the kind of thing you might tell someone."

"If Amy had a baby that got really sick, she couldn't handle it. She'd be lookin' for an easy out."

Ellen cringed at the harsh words. "That's the sort of thing that would overwhelm anyone, especially a young girl."

"It didn't take much to overwhelm Amy. If I asked her to take out the trash, that overwhelmed her."

Ellen let it go. She needed more information. "Can you just tell me a little more about her? What is she like?"

"She was always my wild child. I never could get a handle on that girl."

Ellen found it hard to hear. She had imagined Amy so differently. She wondered if all adoptive mothers had fantasy birth mothers.

"Smart girl, but got lousy grades. Didn't give a shit. I always thought she had, like, ADD, but the teachers said no." Gerry took another puff. "She did her share of drinkin' and drugs. I had no control with her. She was outta here after graduation."

"She ran away?"

"Not like that, just left."

"No college?"

"No way." Gerry smiled crookedly, and Ellen caught a trace of Amy's wisecracking grin.

"Why did she go, may I ask?"

"Didn't like my boyfriend, Tom. They used to get into it all the time. Now she's gone and so's he." Gerry emitted another puff. "I made her stay and graduate high school, but after that, she went off on her own."

"Hold on a sec." Ellen rifled through the papers and handed Gerry the father's consent form. "Look at this. My son's birth father is Charles Cartmell, from Philly. Do you know him?"

"No."

"The name isn't familiar at all? He lives on Grant Avenue in the Northeast." Ellen had checked online last night but couldn't get a phone number or find a listing of the address.

"I don't know the name."

"If Amy is twenty-five now and gave birth to Will three years ago, it means she had him when she was twenty-two. So maybe the father was someone from high school, or the area?"

"She didn't go steady in high school." Gerry shook her head. "She saw a lot of different guys. I didn't ask no questions, believe me."

"Do you have her high school yearbook? Maybe we could look at it?"

"She didn't buy the yearbook. She wasn't the type." Gerry waved her off. "She was my baby, and I spoiled her, yes I did."

"Could I see her bedroom? There might be something in there that would help me."

"I cleared it out a long time ago. I use it for my son's girlfriend now."