Chapter 5: The Bottom Drawer
He waited until Sadie had eaten breakfast and was settled on the living room floor with a box of colored pencils he had found in a kitchen drawer — left over from some other occasion he couldn't remember.
She drew without speaking, focused and careful, the tip of her tongue just visible at the corner of her mouth.
He called his attorney from the hallway.
"It's early," said a voice that did not sound particularly surprised to be called early.
"I need to know my rights," Caleb said.
"Regarding a child.
Paternity.
Custody.
What I need to do first."
A pause.
"Is this the situation from last night?
The girl at the party?"
"Her name is Sadie.
And yes."
"Alright.
First thing — don't make any large moves without documentation.
Do you have anything in writing that establishes the connection?"
"I have a letter from her mother.
Handwritten.
Addressed to me by name."
"That's a start.
Is the mother available to confirm?"
Caleb looked at the photograph of Mara on the kitchen counter where he had set it the night before.
"No," he said.
"She passed."
"I'm sorry.
Then we'll need to move toward a formal paternity process.
It's not complicated, but it takes time.
In the meantime, what's the child's current status?"
"She was in foster care.
She came to me last night."
"Through what arrangement?"
"She came on her own.
She found me."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Caleb.
That's not a legal placement.
You need to contact the relevant authority today.
Not to give her up — to establish yourself as a potential guardian before someone else makes that decision for you."
He hadn't thought about that.
He should have thought about that.
"Today," he said.
"First thing.
I'll send you the contact information."
He hung up and went back to the doorway of the living room.
Sadie had drawn something that might have been a house, or might have been a box with a triangle on top.
She held it up without being asked.
"That's us," she said.
He looked at the drawing.
Two figures inside the box-house.
One tall, one small.
"I'll be right back," he said.
"I need to make one more call."
He drove to Diane's house at nine o'clock.
She answered the door in her dressing gown, a coffee cup in hand.
She looked like she hadn't slept either.
"I need the letters," he said.
She stepped back from the door without speaking.
He took that as permission and walked in.
The study was at the end of the hall.
The filing cabinet was where she had said — dark green, four drawers, the bottom one slightly scratched at the handle from years of use.
He crouched and pulled it open.
The letters were in a manila folder labeled, in Diane's neat handwriting: *M.H.
— correspondence.*
M.H.
Mara's initials.
Filed and labeled.
As if she were a business contact.
As if she were something to be managed.
He took the folder.
Inside were three envelopes, all opened.
All addressed to him.
All with return addresses from different cities — she had moved, he realized.
Mara had moved at least twice while she was trying to reach him.
There was also something else in the folder.
A photograph he had not seen before.
Mara in a hospital bed.
Newborn in her arms.
She was looking at the camera with an expression he had no word for — exhausted and terrified and completely in love, all at once.
On the back: *Sadie.
Day one.
She's perfect, Caleb.
I hope you get to meet her.*
He was still crouching on the floor when Diane appeared in the doorway.
"I was going to tell you," she said.
"Eventually."
He stood up.
He put the folder under his arm.
"When?" he asked.
"When were you going to tell me?"
She looked at the folder.
"When I thought you were ready."
"You've been deciding what I'm ready for for years." He moved toward the door.
She didn't step aside immediately.
"I love you like a son," she said.
"Everything I did came from that."
"I know you believe that," he said.
He waited.
She stepped aside.
He was almost to the front door when she spoke again, and what she said stopped him cold.
"There's something else you should know," Diane said.
"About why Mara stopped writing."
He turned around slowly.
"She didn't stop because she gave up," Diane said.
Her voice had changed — quieter, and something underneath it that sounded almost like fear.
"She stopped because someone told her to."
"Who?"
May you like
Diane set her coffee cup down on the hall table.
"Your father," she said.
