Chapter 7: What Joanna Reyes Saw
Joanna Reyes arrived at two in the afternoon with a clipboard, a calm face, and the particular manner of someone who had walked into hundreds of complicated situations and had learned not to show what she was thinking until she was ready.
Caleb met her at the door.
Sadie was at the kitchen table with a glass of apple juice and the colored pencils, adding to a series of drawings she had been working on all morning.
She looked up when Joanna came in, assessed her briefly, and went back to her drawing.
"She's comfortable," Joanna said, not quite to Caleb, more as an observation to herself.
"She's been here since last night," Caleb said.
"I know.
Can we sit?"
They sat at the kitchen table, close enough to Sadie that she could hear them but far enough that the conversation was clearly adult.
Joanna set her clipboard down but didn't open it.
"How did Sadie come to be here?" she asked.
Caleb told her.
All of it.
The party, the suitcase, the letter, Mara's name.
He kept it factual and in order.
Joanna listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she said: "Do you have the letter?"
He brought the folder from the counter.
She read Mara's letter slowly.
She looked at the photograph from the hospital.
She looked at the other three letters.
She set the folder down.
"You contacted an attorney this morning," she said.
"I did.
He advised me to contact your office today."
"Good advice." She made a note.
"Mr.
Mercer, I want to be straightforward with you.
Sadie's case has been open for fourteen months.
She has been in three placements.
The most recent placement ended six weeks ago when her foster family relocated out of state.
She has been in a temporary group arrangement since then." She paused.
"She is not a child without a file.
She is a child without a home."
Caleb looked at Sadie, who was drawing what appeared to be a rabbit — more recognizable than the house had been.
"What do I need to do?" he said.
"Paternity first.
That's the legal foundation.
Once that's established, we can begin a formal kinship placement process.
In the meantime, I can authorize an emergency provisional arrangement that allows her to stay here while the process moves forward." She looked at him directly.
"That is not a small thing, Mr.
Mercer.
It means home visits.
Background checks.
Interviews.
It is not fast and it is not simple."
"I understand."
"It also means Sadie will know this is temporary until it isn't.
She's five.
She understands more than people think."
"I know," he said.
Joanna looked at Sadie again.
Sadie had finished the rabbit and was now drawing something next to it — a taller figure, standing beside the rabbit, with what appeared to be a very serious expression rendered in brown pencil.
"Sadie," Joanna said.
Sadie looked up.
"Do you like it here?"
Sadie considered this with the gravity of someone being asked an important question.
"He made me eggs," she said.
"And he didn't throw away my suitcase."
Joanna wrote something on her clipboard.
"That's good," she said.
"Those are good things."
Sadie went back to her drawing.
Joanna stood and walked with Caleb to the front door.
"I'll file the provisional authorization today," she said quietly.
"She can stay.
But Mr.
Mercer — I need you to understand something.
The process can be challenged.
If there are other parties who have an interest in this child's placement, they can raise objections."
"What kind of parties?"
"Family.
Extended family.
Anyone who can establish a prior relationship or a competing claim." She looked at him steadily.
"Is there anyone like that in this situation?"
He thought of Gerald sitting in his chair in that cold, clean house.
"Possibly," he said.
"Then move quickly," Joanna said.
"And document everything."
She left.
Caleb stood in the doorway for a moment.
Then he went back to the kitchen.
Sadie held up the drawing.
The tall figure next to the rabbit had a name written underneath it in careful, uneven letters: *CALEB*.
She had spelled it correctly.
"Your mom told you my name," he said.
"She told me lots of things," Sadie said.
She picked up a yellow pencil and began adding something to the sky above the figures.
"She said you had a good face."
He sat down across from her.
"She said that?"
"She said if I ever found you, I would know it was you because of your face." Sadie didn't look up from the drawing.
"She was right."
He didn't say anything.
He watched her draw the sun — careful, deliberate, one ray at a time — and thought about a twenty-three-year-old woman in a hospital bed, alone, writing a letter she didn't know if he would ever read.
His phone buzzed on the counter.
A text from a number he didn't recognize.
*This is Gerald.
I've been thinking.
I'd like to meet her.
If that's something you'd consider.
I know I don't deserve to ask.*
He set the phone face-down on the counter.
He wasn't ready to answer that yet.
But that night, after Sadie was asleep — the gray suitcase still beside the bed, the stuffed rabbit tucked under her arm — he picked up Mara's letter one more time and read the last line.
*I hope you get to see that for yourself someday.*
He folded it carefully and put it back in the envelope.
May you like
He would answer Gerald tomorrow.
Tonight, he just sat in the doorway of his daughter's room and listened to her breathe.
