Chapter 10

The supervised visit was in a room at the Braithwaite County office with two couches and a table and a window that looked out on a parking lot. There was no lock on the door. A caseworker sat in the corner with a notebook.

I brought the folded blanket from Fern’s apartment. The caseworker had let me pick it up after Fern gave permission by phone. It smelled like the rink closet, cold rubber and old wool.

Amos came in with his backpack on both shoulders. He sat on the far end of the couch and looked at the floor.

“Hi,” I said.

He didn’t answer.

I put the blanket on the table between us.

“Fern asked about you,” I said. “She wanted you to have this.”

He looked at the blanket. His jaw worked.

“She’s in the hospital,” I said. “She’s sick. But she’s asking.”

“Is she coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

He reached out and took the blanket. He held it in his lap with both hands. For a minute neither of us said anything.

“They said you’re my mom,” he said.

“Yes.”

“They said Nan stole me.”

I chose my words carefully. “Fern took you when you were a baby. She did it because she thought she was protecting you. She was wrong. But she loved you. She still loves you.”

He looked up. His eyes were red but dry. “Did you know?”

“No. I thought you died.”

“But you didn’t come get me.”

“I didn’t know there was anything to get.”

He was quiet. The caseworker’s pen scratched.

“I have to tell you something,” I said. “I’m not going to say the word mother unless you want me to. I’m not going to make you call me anything. But I’m going to be here. Every visit. Every time. And when the county decides where you go, I’m going to ask them to let you come to my house. You don’t have to want that. But I’m going to ask.”

He pulled the blanket up to his chin. “Can you bring Nan’s radio next time?”

“Yes.”

“The green one?”

“The green one.”

He nodded once. Then he looked at the window. The visit was over in forty-five minutes. He didn’t hug me. He didn’t say goodbye. But he took the blanket.

When I walked out, Verna was parked at the curb in her sedan. A man in a suit stood beside her. She rolled down the window.

“I’ll support the placement,” she said. “I’ll sign whatever the county wants. I’ll pay for the home study. I’ll do it all.”

“What do you want?”

“Leave the notary out of it. Tell them it was a mistake. A blank form. I’ll say I didn’t know.”

I looked at my mother. She was sixty-three, silver-haired, straight-backed. She had bought nine years of silence with money orders and a stamp. She had let me grieve a living child. She had let Fern raise him in a closet. She had let Amos become a boy who didn’t flinch when soda hit his shoulder.

“No,” I said.

“Halle.”

“I’m not trading him for you.”

Her face went hard. “You’ll destroy me.”

“Maybe.” I put my hand on the door of my truck. “But I’m going to bring him his radio next week. And the week after that. And the week after that. That’s the only thing I’m sure of.”

I got in and started the engine. In the rearview mirror, Verna sat in her car with the window still down, the cold coming in, her lawyer talking at her shoulder.

I drove back toward the office. Amos was already gone, but the blanket was with him. The card was in my wallet. The intake form was in the county record. The notary stamp was under review.

I had one hour a week. I had a DNA test pending. I had a home study to pass. I had a mother who might go to prison and a son who might never call me anything.

But I had a door. I was going to walk through it.