"You were adopted," Catherine said. It was not a question.
"As an infant." Iris nodded, unembarrassed. "They chose me. That's the word we've always used. Chosen." She said it the way other people said beloved.
Catherine looked at her, this girl raised on a story that was half true and all wrong, and something in her chest folded in half.
"You don't remember anything from before," Catherine said softly.
"I was only weeks old. But I don't need to remember." Iris touched the small gold pendant at her throat. "My parents are my parents. I never felt anything was missing."
Catherine had rehearsed restraint all the way here and found it nearly impossible in this sunlit room. She wanted to reach across the coffee table and hold the girl's face in her hands. Instead she asked about the library annex, and Iris talked, and Catherine watched the way she gestured with her left hand, her sleeve sliding, never quite far enough.
"I sketch everywhere," Iris said, laughing, and pulled a battered notebook from the side table. She flipped pages toward Catherine, and as she reached across the table, her sleeve rode up her forearm.
Catherine saw it. On the inner left wrist, half hidden beneath the cuff she quickly smoothed back down, was the heart-shaped birthmark. Small, unmistakable, identical to the one in the locket's faded photograph and to the one Nora had shown her in the restaurant.
The room tilted. Catherine gripped the arm of her chair.
"Are you all right?" Iris asked. "You've gone pale."
"A dizzy spell. It passes." She forced herself to breathe. "You have a lovely mark there. On your wrist."
Iris glanced down and tugged her sleeve lower, a practiced gesture, too practiced. "My mother says it's my signature. I've had it since birth. I barely notice it anymore."
"Since birth," Catherine repeated. The word sat between them like a held note.
"I should ask," Iris said, gently changing the subject. "Would the foundation want a full proposal, or just concept boards to start?"
"Concept boards," Catherine said. She stood. She could not sit in this room another minute without breaking apart. "You've been generous with your time, Iris."
"Will I see you again? About the project?"
"Yes." Catherine's voice caught. "I believe you will."
At the door, Iris hesitated. "Mrs. Marlowe? Forgive me, but you look at me like you know me."
Catherine held her gaze. Nora's eyes, in a face that had never gone hungry. "Perhaps," she said, "I knew someone who looked like you, once."
She walked down the porch steps without looking back. The driver opened the door. Catherine slid into the back seat and sat very still, her hands folded over her purse, over the locket she had not shown.
Somewhere behind her, in that warm bright house, her daughter was probably sketching the arts center, humming, chosen. Catherine closed her eyes and let the shaking come, silent and entire.
Chapter 14: Helen
Helen Webb opened the front door before Catherine could knock a second time, as if she had been waiting behind it. She was in her late sixties, slender to the point of fragility, her silver hair pinned with a precision that looked like armor. Her eyes swept Catherine's face with a quickness that was almost fear, then hardened.
"Mrs. Marlowe," Helen said. "Iris told me you came to see her."
"She did. May I come in?"
"I'd rather you didn't." Helen's hand tightened on the door. "I don't know what you think you're doing, visiting my daughter. I don't like it."
"I asked her very little," Catherine said. "And she is not your daughter, Helen. Not in the way you believe."
The color drained from Helen's face, then returned in two hard spots of red. "You don't get to come to my house and say things like that."
"I know about the trust," Catherine said quietly. "I know about Theodore's money. I know you were paid."
Helen did not move. Then she stepped back and opened the door wider. "Fine. Come in. Say what you've come to say, and then leave."
Catherine sat on the edge of a chair she had not been offered. Helen stayed standing, arms crossed, positioned between Catherine and the hallway.
"We gave her everything," Helen said before Catherine could speak. "Do you understand that? A home. Schooling. A family. She never wanted for anything. Whatever story you've built in your head, we gave her everything."
"Nobody is saying you starved her, Helen."
"You're saying we stole her. I can see it on your face." Helen's voice had a brittle edge. "Marcus and I could not have children. That is a grief you will never understand. And Theodore, he saw it. He gave us a gift."
"Twenty-three years ago, my husband told me my daughter died in a nursery fire. He arranged everything that night. The records, the doctor, the nurse who couldn't go through with it. There were two girls, Helen. Two. One was left at an orphanage with no name. The other was given to you."
"Stop this." Helen's hands had gone white on her own arms.
"The girl you call Iris is my daughter. Her name was never hers. The story about being chosen was built on a lie Theodore paid for. And you took the money."
"We gave her everything," Helen said again, thinner this time.
"You gave her everything except the truth." Catherine stood slowly. "I understand grief, Helen. I understand wanting a child badly enough to bend your judgment. But I need you to tell me what happened. Not for me. For her."
Helen walked to the window and stood with her back to Catherine, her shoulders rigid.
"You don't know what he was like," Helen said at last. "Theodore. He made it sound so simple. A child who needed parents. A family who needed a child. He said it was an arrangement that helped everyone."
"An arrangement," Catherine said carefully. "His word?"
Helen nodded, still facing the window. "He said the mother had died. That the baby had no one. The money, the trust, it was only to make sure she was provided for. That was all it was supposed to be."
"And the mother never wrote," Catherine said. "No one ever came looking for the child."
"No," Helen said. "No one ever came."
"He told me my baby died in a fire, Helen. I carried that grief for twenty-three years while you raised my daughter three miles from my own house. I buried a daughter who was never dead."
Helen turned, her face changed, the defensiveness cracked open to reveal something raw underneath. "You think I never wondered where she really came from? Marcus told me not to. He said the arrangement was finished, that digging would only hurt everyone. Theodore made sure we understood."