A Mother's Claim

Christian could not be her biological son.

* * *

ONE MONTH LATER, almost to the day, Nolan buried his sister.

When their parents died two years ago, he had acted on intuition—or had it only been fear?—and purchased not two cemetery plots but three. Now he laid Marlee to rest beside her mother.

He’d seen too much death and devastation himself to gain any comfort from that—he’d ceased to believe in an afterlife or the rosy fiction that Mom had met Marlee with outstretched arms. But Christian seemed to find it some consolation, which was all that mattered.

Christian had insisted on staying to watch as earth was shoveled atop the casket. Only two cemetery workers in rain gear remained with them. Friends and the minister who’d said a few words over the grave had all given the man and boy kind, pitying glances and walked away, sheltered by black umbrellas. Nolan held the same kind of umbrella and kept Christian close to him with an arm around his shoulders. Cold rain dripped from the bare branches of the maples that lined the paved cemetery lane. The heap of soil beside the grave had been protected by a tarp.

As the first shovelful pattered down, Christian’s body jerked.

“That’s enough,” Nolan said harshly and turned him away.

To his relief, Christian didn’t protest.

They walked across the squishy ground to Nolan’s SUV, decorated on each side with the logo of his business and the name: Wind & Waves.

Shivers racked his nephew’s thin body. “I can’t believe...” he mumbled.

That his mother was dead? Nolan had no trouble believing that. What he struggled with was the knowledge of how she died. Marlee committed suicide after Nolan insisted she tell him the truth about Christian. He, who had vowed to care for her, had killed her.

When he first confronted her, she screamed, “That’s a lie! That’s a lie! That’s a lie!” and covered her ears with her hands. He had insisted she stay with them so she couldn’t run from questions she didn’t want to answer. He’d also figured that with Christian out of school recuperating, she could be there to help while Nolan was at work. Nolan had grown grimmer, Marlee more hysterical. He had become reluctantly convinced that she truly believed she had carried Christian for nine months and borne him with the help of a midwife rather than in a hospital.

Did that mean Christian had no birth certificate? Hadn’t Marlee or their parents needed one to enroll him in school?

Nolan would forever be thankful that he—not Christian—had found her dead from an overdose. The law had required an autopsy, and Nolan had asked if the pathologist could tell if she had ever borne a child.

The pathologist’s report had left no doubt, detailing changes childbirth made to a woman’s body. Marlee Gregor had never birthed a baby.

And she’d taken to her grave any answers about who Christian’s biological parents were and how she had come to claim him.

She had also left Nolan with a shattering emotional and moral dilemma.

He loved Christian like a son. Any effort to trace those parents, to find out whether his sister, in the grip of her madness, had stolen a baby boy, could result in Nolan losing Christian.

Reason said he should keep what he knew to himself. Christian had experienced too much turmoil already in his life. As it was, he could cling to the belief that, despite everything, his mom had loved him, that the grandparents he still missed had been his, that he was safe with his uncle Nolan.

And Nolan couldn’t imagine his life without the boy who was his only family.

And yet...what if somewhere were parents who still mourned their lost child? He didn’t want to think his sister had been capable of snatching a baby from a loving family, but he couldn’t be sure.

Christian’s DNA might have been entered in databases of missing children and been waiting all these years for a match.

Perhaps the boy’s biological mother had been a teenager living on the street, unable to care for him. Marlee might even have found him abandoned.

God, how Nolan wanted to believe in that as an explanation.

In the weeks that followed, he had trouble thinking about anything else. His heart and his conscience engaged in silent warfare.

It’s the right thing to do.

I could lose him.

If his parents pop up and want him back...what will that do to Christian?

He told himself constantly that he could take his time, think about the consequences of every conceivable choice. That baby boy had become Christian Josiah Gregor a very long time ago, which meant there was no hurry for Nolan to make a decision. A few weeks, months, at this point, what difference did it make?

* * *

FLOATING ON A cloud of well-being, Dana Stewart didn’t want to open her eyes. The aftereffects of a dream lingered. She could feel the precious weight of her son in her arms, smell baby powder and his natural sweetness. The sensation of happiness was so rare she would have given anything to hold on to it.

But, inevitably, she woke up and the glow succumbed to crushing pain and guilt.

Still she lay there, refusing to open her eyes. If she did, she’d have to see her empty, lonely bedroom, the one she’d once shared with her husband. She and Craig had divorced a year after Gabriel’s disappearance.

Too awake now to hold on to the dream, she opened her eyes at last to see her bedroom door open to the hall, as always. She never closed her door or the one into Gabe’s room, not anymore. Dana knew how irrational she was being, but she couldn’t fight a desperate need to...hear.

She followed her usual routine: check her phone to be absolutely sure she hadn’t somehow missed a call or text, get out of bed, choose something to wear, shower, force down some toast or a bagel with peanut butter.

It had taken her years to do more than snatch a few hours of interrupted sleep. Even now, she didn’t sleep deeply.

She didn’t enjoy eating anymore, either. It had always puzzled her that she hadn’t gone the other way; she’d loved food, once upon a time, loved to cook and had been just a little plump. Now...she ate to sustain life. She doubted Craig would recognize her. Occasionally, she encountered an old friend and saw shock.

Really, she was healthier than she’d ever been. She ran up to five miles a day, usually when she got home from work. Her diet consisted of whole grains, vegetables, fruit and nuts. She had a runner’s thin body but didn’t care how she looked.

On the surface, she lived—had friends, spent time with her family, held a fulfilling job. But she would sacrifice every other relationship to find Gabriel. That hole inside her, the search, secretly consumed her.

She haunted websites devoted to missing children, posting reminders of her lost son wherever she could. Once a year, she called the detective who had investigated fruitlessly, even though he was now a district commander in the Aurora, Colorado, police department. He was always polite and sympathetic; yes, he would do some follow-up. He always called a few days later to say that nothing new had come up. Although she knew he was thinking it, he didn’t say, Lady, your son is dead. You need to deal with reality.

If she had believed, truly believed, that Gabe was dead, she wasn’t sure she’d have reason to live. But if Gabriel ever was found, he would need her. She couldn’t surrender entirely to despair.

She would go to work, immerse herself in other people’s problems, try to find them help, soften their burdens. She’d come home, run until her body ached, eat what she must, read or watch some meaningless television show and finally go to bed, where she would only allow herself to sleep lightly, listening for the faintest of sounds.

She would keep doing it.

But every hour, every day, every week and month and year, scoured her out until less and less of the old Dana survived.

* * *

UNCLE NOLAN HAD been really quiet since Christian got home from school. Well, not home home—most days, if he wasn’t hanging with friends, he rode his bike to his uncle’s business, which had a private beach on the Columbia River. Uncle Nolan had bought the business when he came back from Afghanistan for good, and immediately made a deal with a really cool small inn to take over an old boathouse and expand it on land leased from them. Then he’d sold the original building on the main street.

It wasn’t like he’d been busy today; hardly anybody wanted to rent windsurfing gear or a sailboat or kayak in late January, when the weather was this cold and wet. Usually Uncle Nolan didn’t seem to mind slow stretches; he said the busy seasons more than made up for them.

But today he’d been sitting behind a computer and barely looked up when Christian walked in. All he said was, “Homework.”

Uncle Nolan used as few words as possible, listening more than he talked. This was kind of different, though. Usually he at least said hi and asked about Christian’s day. He’d been more withdrawn since Mom died. He brooded a lot, which was okay. Christian did, too, going up to his room to lie on his bed, stare up at the ceiling and wonder how Mom could have done that. Hadn’t she worried about him at all? He knew she was sick, but hadn’t she loved him? What if she had changed her mind at the last second but it was too late?