Blood Ties (10 page)

“Martha's not going to forget it.”

“There is no way she can find out.”

“That sounds cruel, too.”

“Only because she has brought it up.”

“But she has. You know her, Sheila.”

“Could she find out?”

“I'll talk to Amos Cadbury.”

“Mr. Cadbury wouldn't tell her. He wouldn't do that to us.”

“Sheila, it must be a matter of record.”

“Where are the papers?”

It surprised Sheila that George found them so easily. They sat side by side on the couch, looking at the legal record of their adopting Martha.

“South Bend?”

“He seems to have filed the papers there.”

“There is no mention of the mother.”

“That's odd.”

“So we could show her this and she would see there's no way…”

After dinner, during which nothing was said of the matter that weighed on all their minds, George, as agreed, brought it up.

“Martha, I have located the adoption papers. We think you should see them.”

“Oh yes.”

Martha studied the document, turned it over, read it again. She looked from Sheila to George. “It doesn't say.”

“No.”

Martha flung the paper from her. “What good is that?”

“Well, it made you ours.”

Martha stared at George, and her expression softened. She crossed the room and took him in her arms. “Oh, Daddy.”

Sheila could not remember when she had ever seen George cry.

12

The following day, Martha told Bernard about the document she had been shown and the great disappointment it had been. “There was no mention of my mother.”

He rubbed his chin. “This is not my sort of thing, sweetie. I have no experience of adoptions at all. But I should think there must be some release on the part of the mother.”

“It wasn't there.”

“I imagine that was a separate matter, and your parents might not have been given that. No reason why they should have been, I suppose. You say South Bend?”

“Isn't that odd?”

“Wait a minute. I went to school there.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Who was the lawyer?”

“Amos Cadbury. He's a friend of my grandfather's.”

“Cadbury! He went to law school at Notre Dame.”

“So you can talk to him?”

“I could, sure, but I'd rather not. Look, Martha, the paper you saw was registered in Indiana, but any release on the part of the mother must have been made where the birth occurred.”

“It must have been Fox River.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Oh, please don't make it seem an insoluble problem.”

“I'll tell you what I can do. If I go to Cadbury, he's going to put some menial on it. I doubt whether he has vivid memories of every legal thing he's done.”

“Would there be a record in his office?”

“It could only be a copy. Look, let's bypass Cadbury. At least for now. All we need is some run-of-the-mill lawyer to check it out.”

“Do you have anyone in mind?”

“Get the phone book. The yellow pages.”

She brought it, and he put it on his lap and began to leaf through. “Ah. Here. A lawyer who puts an ad in the yellow pages is just the sort of man we want.” He closed his eyes and dropped his finger on the page. Then he looked. “Tuttle and Tuttle. Never heard of them. They okay with you?”

“Will you talk to them?”

“Will you be my client?”

“For life. But, Bernard, I have to know.”

“Then, my darling, you shall.”

When she was again free of his embrace, she said, “Oh, I hate being a legal entity.”

“We all are.”

*   *   *

The only relative she could really talk with about all this was Uncle Maurice, who had suddenly shown up unannounced, spreading apprehension in the Lynches and Dolans. What awful thing was he involved in now? But Maurice had not come bearing bad news. The uneasiness lifted slowly. He took Martha golfing.

“You're not bad,” he said afterward, as they lounged in the clubhouse. “With a little work you could be good.”

“Oh, it's so good to see you.”

“You, too, kiddo. I won't tell you you're beautiful.”

“And I won't tell you you're handsome.”

“But dissolute.”

“Isn't everything going well?”

“The business? Martha, it takes care of itself. You hire a few kids and they do it all. I just hope they're not stealing me blind.”

“Now, if you would only marry and carry on the Dolan name.”

“I'll leave that to you for the present.”

“I couldn't do that in any case.”

“I suppose you would have to take your husband's name.”

“Maurice, you know it's more than that.”

He actually had to think before he understood. Was she the only one who regarded her status as strange?

“Not that old stuff.”

“There is someone, Maurice. Someone I love very much. I've met the family. They checked me out as they might have a horse they meant to buy. It was all the Dolans and the Lynches. I made a great hit.”

“I can believe it.”

“But I'm not a Lynch or a Dolan. I don't know what I am. Even apart from his parents, I could never marry without knowing where I came from.”

“Aren't Adam and Eve good enough for you?”

“How would you feel if you found out you had been adopted?”

“Relieved, in a way. I wouldn't be such a disappointment then.”

“Please, Maurice. Be serious about this.”

He nodded. He lit another cigarette. “So find out.”

“Why can't they just tell me?”

“What makes you so sure they know?”

Good Lord, she had never thought of that. She had no clear idea of how adoptions took place. Did people adopt anonymous little babies, unaware of where they had come from, who the mother was? Did that explain the pain her questions caused her mother? Maybe she was in the dark, too, and just didn't like to think of it. But she had told Sheila she could be her mother's twin. Even so, it was so much easier just to think of herself as Sheila's daughter, as a Lynch. Well, what else could she be now? She couldn't live her life over, be raised by someone else.

“You're no help, Maurice.”

“It's the story of my life, sweetheart.”

“But I love you just the same. You're the best of the lot, you know.”

“Good God, what a depressing thought.”

13

“Will you take a look at that?” Marie said, standing at the window in Father Dowling's study.

“At what, Marie?”

“At the two of them, hand in hand at their age, and him simpering like a silly boy.”

“I don't think I'll get up to see such a scandalous scene.”

“Grace Weaver is sixty if she's a day, and as for Martin Sisk…” Marie made a disgusted noise and turned from the window with her body but not her head. She continued looking out. “And he wanted to be your altar boy!”

“Altar boys don't take a vow of celibacy, Marie.”

“He shouldn't need a vow at his age.”

“Come away from the window. Jealousy is an unseemly vice.”

“Jealousy!” Marie bounded to the door, where she stood glaring at the pastor.

“It will be our secret.”

Marie managed not to slam the door when she left. After a moment, Father Dowling rose and looked discreetly out his window. There indeed on the walk was Martin Sisk walking hand in hand with Grace Weaver. Such autumnal pairings were not unknown among the widowed denizens of the senior center, a source of mild amusement to Edna Hospers and, in this case at least, of disgust to Marie Murkin. Well, not everyone had Marie's towering self-reliance, but even so she should know what loneliness does to the aged. There was a sharp rap on the door, and he got back to his chair before it opened. Marie looked in, smiling sweetly.

“Guess who's here?” She stepped aside, and Amos Cadbury appeared in the doorway.

Father Dowling rose. “Amos, this is a delightful surprise.”

“Forgive me for showing up unannounced. I tried to call you from my car but couldn't get through.”

“I never heard the phone,” cried Marie. “Did you, Father?” She squeezed past Amos and came to the desk. “No wonder.” She jiggled his phone into its receiver. “The line was open.”

“Another mystery solved.”

“Who knows how many calls couldn't get through?”

“Thank you, Marie.”

She glanced at Amos, who managed not to intercept her censorious look, and then she was gone.

Amos settled down. “Remarkable woman.”

“Indeed.”

For Amos, a woman who could cook like Marie was forgiven many things.

“You must join me for lunch. After the noon Mass.”

“You will think I have chosen the time out of cunning.”

“Marie will be delighted.”

“As will I.”

He informed Marie that they would be having a guest, eliciting a flood of apologies for the simple meal she had been preparing. If only she had known in advance! She cut short her apologies to scamper back to her kitchen.

“I will wait until later to speak of the reason for my visit,” Amos said.

“Of course.”

Ten minutes later, Amos went with him to the church, heading for a front pew while Father Dowling readied himself in the sacristy. One of the distractions of saying Mass facing the people is that one more or less unconsciously takes note of who is there. Martin and Grace knelt side by side, across the aisle from Amos. Scattered through the crowd were other regulars at daily Mass, among them the Dolans, far in the back. Afterward, when Father Dowling emerged from the church, he found Amos in conversation with the Dolans. The little group suddenly seemed a middle term, linking what Henry and Amos had told him separately. Father Dowling joined them and considered asking the Dolans to lunch as well, but that would have been straining Marie's hospitality. She could easily stretch what she prepared for him to two, but four would present a problem he might hear about for days.

When they were at table, Marie ladled out potato and leek soup, over which Amos murmured appreciatively, and followed it with an omelet and salad for which he awarded her a
cordon bleu.
They ended with coffee and a slice of Marie's apple pie. The patrician Amos actually kissed the cook when they were done, and Father Dowling thought for a moment she might toss her apron over her face like a character in Dickens. If Martin Sisk was a simpering boy, she was a giggling girl. Then the men settled down in the study, where Father Dowling lit his pipe and Amos broke the routine of his day by lighting a cigar before sunset. There were some minutes of smoke-filled silence.

“You remember our conversation at the University Club, Father?”

“Yes.”

It did not surprise Father Dowling that Amos should want to go over what they had spoken of before, nor was he himself reluctant to do so. After all, this was not something either of them could discuss with anyone else. And so he listened to Amos tick off the elements of the story. Martha Lynch's desire to know the truth about her background had upset both her parents and grandparents. But it was the reappearance of the woman who had given birth to Martha that most affected Amos.

“I feel I should have been more forthcoming. I did tell her the child was a girl and that her name is Martha. Why did I stop there?” asked Amos.

“Perhaps if she had pressed you, you wouldn't have.”

But it was the dreadful suspicion that had been stirred in Amos's mind when Nathaniel Fleck was killed on Dirksen Boulevard that explained the lawyer's need to have this conversation.

“You haven't told anyone else, have you, Amos?”

A thick blue smoke ring issued from Amos's mouth and drifted across the study. “I took your advice.”

“And wish you hadn't?”

“Somewhat.”

“Amos, the police aren't sure it was a hit-and-run. The whole incident turns out to be very ambiguous.”

“The man is dead.”

“That's true enough. But not that someone was clearly responsible for it.”

“Father, even if I thought Madeline Lorenzo had killed that man, I don't know that I would go to the police.”

There were things he might have said, but it seemed better to subside into silence. Amos blew another smoke ring. Smoke curled upward from the bowl of Father Dowling's pipe. They might have been sending up prayers that all would be well with Martha and the Lynches and Dolans—and Madeline Lorenzo. Father Dowling added a prayer for the repose of the soul of Nathaniel Fleck.

14

Only his irrepressible spirit had prevented Tuttle from succumbing to professional despair. For him to have become a lawyer at all amounted to such a feat that the largely rocky road he had trod since finally passing the bar exams seemed a smooth slide into obscurity. When doubt did strike, he was sustained by the thought of his father—his honorary posthumous partner in Tuttle & Tuttle—who had never lost faith in his son's dogged pursuit of a legal career. Now, from the beyond, his paternal parent remained his recourse, one he frequently consulted and on whose intercession he counted to keep his head above water. Success had been rare, but whenever apparent shipwreck threatened, Tuttle senior had come through. Now there seemed a veritable avalanche of good things turning up.

Item. Martin Sisk. Not only had the erstwhile pharmacist become a client, he was diverting the amorous attention of the redoubtable Hazel.

“Look out for his hands,” Tuttle had warned.

“Tuttle, you wouldn't know a gentleman if you met one.” If Hazel had been capable of blushing, her cheek would have been suffused as she said it.

She and his new client had gotten onto the subject of old films, and it turned out Martin had quite a collection.

“He has a DVD of
From Here to Eternity.
”