"Thank you." Catherine ended the call and stood at the window, the locket warm in her fist. Somewhere across the city a young waitress was finishing her shift, wiping tables, riding a bus home to a life that had never once included the name Marlowe.
Tomorrow she would go back to Maison Lumière, find Nora Fields after the lunch rush, and ask for the one thing that could end every argument: a cheek swab, a laboratory, the truth written in blood. She would accept whatever the answer was.
But she would know.
Chapter 5: The Cheek Swab
Catherine arrived at Maison Lumière at ten past ten, after the last seating. She took a table near the kitchen door and ordered only water. She watched the staff close the room down, and kept her eyes on the young waitress who had not once looked her way.
Nora was stacking menus at the host stand when her shift ended. She saw Catherine, sighed audibly, and walked over with her apron still on.
"You are sitting at table fourteen," Nora said. "Is that a coincidence."
"No," Catherine said. "May I talk to you? Five minutes."
Nora glanced toward the kitchen. "You already ruined one of my shifts. I would like to finish this one without another scene."
"There will be no scene," Catherine said. "Please."
Nora untied her apron and sat down across the table, braced for battle.
"Five minutes," Nora said. "I ask questions too."
"Fair," Catherine said.
Nora leaned forward. "You think I am your dead daughter because of a birthmark."
"I think you may be my daughter," Catherine said carefully, "because of a birthmark I know well, a photograph, and facts that stopped making sense three days ago."
"Three days ago you did not know I existed," Nora said. "Now you are certain I am the baby from your locket. Do you hear how that sounds."
"Yes," Catherine said. "I do."
"Then we agree," Nora said. "I was left at Saint Mary's Orphanage as an infant. No name, no note, nothing. My foster mother told me a hundred times. A nurse brought me in wrapped in a hospital blanket. That is the story. It does not involve a philanthropist or a silver locket."
Catherine's hands were folded on the table, still as carved stone. "What kind of blanket?"
"I have no idea," Nora said. "Why would that matter."
"I am trying to see whether the facts fit," Catherine said. "I am not asking you to believe anything."
Nora gave a short humorless laugh. "Lady, I serve people for a living. I know when someone has already decided what they want to hear."
"Then hear me out," Catherine said. "Twenty-three years ago I gave birth at Saint Anne's Hospital. I was told my daughter died that night in a nursery fire. I held her once. She had a heart-shaped birthmark on her inner left wrist, exactly like yours, and I placed my silver locket on her before they took her away."
Nora's face did not move, but her fingers tightened around the folded apron.
"I have not slept since I saw your wrist three days ago," Catherine said. "Not from hope. From a question I cannot answer any other way."
"And the question is answered by my cheek cells," Nora said.
"A DNA test," Catherine said. "Yes."
"No," Nora said, standing so fast her chair scraped the floor. "Absolutely not. You do not get to ask for pieces of me."
"I know," Catherine said. "A stranger asking for something enormous."
"You are asking because of a birthmark," Nora said. "Millions of people have birthmarks. Maybe you are lonely. I am not a grief project."
Catherine let the words sit a moment. "I have carried grief for twenty-three years. But I did not come because I am lonely. My husband sat at this very table three nights ago, and when I asked whether he changed the records, something crossed his face. One flicker. I have been married to him for twenty-six years. I know what his face does when he lies."
Nora stared. "Not my problem."
"Someone changed something," Catherine said. "Your records or mine, or both. The only way to settle it is a test no one can argue with."
Nora crossed her arms. "So I spit in a tube, it says you are my mother, and we hug. That is not how this works."
"No," Catherine said. "The test will say what it says. If it says no, I walk away and you never see me again. No visits, no letters, no hovering. That is my promise."
"And if it says yes," Nora said quietly.
"Then we talk about it," Catherine said. "Together."
Nora looked toward the dark windows, and for a moment the guarded waitress was gone, replaced by a young woman doing arithmetic with her own history.
"You know what the worst part is," Nora said at last. "Part of me wants it to be true. Which is exactly why I should say no."
"I understand that," Catherine said. "Fear and hope sound a lot alike at first."
Nora met her eyes. "If I do this, it is not because I believe you. It is because I want to watch your face when the test proves you wrong."
"That is a perfectly good reason," Catherine said.
"And it happens on my terms," Nora said. "Tomorrow. I pick the time. Nobody tells my boss."
"Tomorrow," Catherine agreed.
The genetics lab was on the fourth floor of a brick building on East 63rd. Dr. Ruth Adler, a compact woman in her fifties, explained the procedure to Nora as though describing a bus route.
"Open wide, count to ten, we are done," Dr. Adler said. "One swab per cheek. Less dramatic than television suggests."
Nora sat in the reclined chair, arms folded, jaw set. "Will it hurt."
"Not even a little," Dr. Adler said. "The anticipation is the worst part."