Full Disclosure (16 page)

Black disappeared down the hall, and a squeak erupted from his rubber duck. Then his spinner whistled. She heard dog feet on the floor race toward the kitchen. The talking bird started talking. She smiled. Used to the routine, she still enjoyed it. Black had to do a count of his toys to make sure they were all where he had left them. She dumped her travel bag on her bed and unpacked. She waited for the bear to growl, and when it did she leaned out into the hall and saw Black carrying the bear with him toward the living room. Still his favorite. She tossed laundry in the washer, then repacked so the bag was ready to go again at a moment's notice.

“Comfortable, Black?”

His tail smacked the floor. He had the bear in a stranglehold in his paws, chewing on an arm. She got a cold soda and connected the video link to Paul. “Calling, as requested.”

His smile warmed her heart. “It's good to see you, Ann. How was the trip?”

“I'm not going to mention the case, as it took the whole flight back to even start to forget it. The flight itself was interesting. A lot of crosswinds, and the thermals were ugly. Hot summer air can be some of the most challenging for flying. On the bright side, the scenery was gorgeous.”

“I'll just say I'm glad you're safely home. How's Midnight?”

She turned the camera so he could see. “Say hi, Black.”

The dog paused his enthusiastic chewing long enough for a single bark.

“He looks happy to see you home.”

“Neva spoils him. What about you? How's your day been?”

“Paperwork—reading over interview transcripts.” He held up the pages in his hand. “It came home with me. The team has done forty-six out of the one hundred twenty-three interviews, and so far nothing solid is showing up. We're not getting the reaction to the middleman photo or the amounts that I had hoped. Ten of the thirty murders are now officially cold again.”

“Ouch. I'll let you get back to your reading.”

“Ann, leave the video on, and we can share the evening. Go get a book to read, find a show to watch, work on a story, whatever you want to do with your evening. Just spend the time with me. We don't have to say anything to enjoy each other's company.”

“It's a nice thought, but—”

“You have plans for the evening? Company coming over? You want me to go away and are too polite to say so?”

“I talk to myself. Or more accurately, I talk to the dog.”

He grinned. “Will you get embarrassed if I say that's endearing?”

She smiled. “I don't want to feel on display in my own home, so no, let's end the call.”

“You have to trust me sometime, Ann. Why not start with what you tell your dog when you think no one else is listening? How about I promise, unless you say, Paul, I'll ignore what you are saying?”

“Don't try to be so reasonable. I'm likely going to read a book. That's exciting.”

He held up the pages in his hand.

“Point taken.”

“Share your evening with me. I'll enjoy your company.”

“We'll try it. But I reserve the right to change my mind without notice.”

“Not a problem. Don't even need to explain. Thanks.”

Paul finished another interview and added it to the stack he'd read. He glanced over at the screen. Ann was stretched out on the couch, pillow and book propped on her stomach, reading. Midnight had moved to sprawl beside her and use the couch as a backrest. Paul saw Ann turn the page, then reach down and rub her fingers through Midnight's thick coat. He could almost hear the dog's sigh. Paul smiled.

A phone rang. He glanced at his, then realized it was Ann's. She picked up her phone, and a moment later the audio bar on the screen turned orange as she put the video call on mute. She disappeared for twenty minutes. When she returned, she plugged the cellphone in to charge the battery and hit the button to turn on the audio. “How's it going?”

“It's not.” He set aside the pages. “Talk to me for a bit, Ann. I need a break from this.”

“Sure.” She settled into a comfortable chair.

“You picked up a book tonight. Is that a normal evening?”

“Pretty much, when I'm unwinding and just want to relax.”

“What do you like to read?”

“Popular fiction—mysteries, adventures, romances—well-drawn characters with an interesting story. I enjoy a good biography, but generally stay away from history. I read a lot of experts on food, finance, birds, baseball, politics. I like the
New Yorker
profile pieces. What?” She stopped because he was smiling at her.

“Everything. You read everything.”

“I don't often read the side panels of cereal boxes, the sports page, or the magazines in the spin rack at the grocery store. But, okay, other than that, I read just about everything. What was the last book you read?”

He shifted stacks on his desk and held one up. “Andy Stanley's book,
The Best Question Ever: A Revolutionary Approach to Decision Making
.”

“Oh, I read that one. Good choice.
What is the wise thing to do?
And the answer to that question for right now is to ask you to change the subject.”

“New topic then.” He waited. “Your question,” he offered.

She thought about it and studied him thoughtfully. “Can I ask you a tough personal question?”

“Sure.”

“You said you were adopted.”

“Yes. My parents were killed in a wreck when I was four. I remember the smell of my mother's perfume. I remember in a vague way my father's laugh. But I don't remember much else about them.”

“There was no family to take you in?”

“No. A distant cousin who lived in Japan was my last living relative. I stayed with a foster family for a couple years, then moved to a larger group home near my school. George and Karen Falcon adopted me when I was nine.”

“Does it bother you to talk about it?”

“I don't talk about it much, but it's relevant and important. What do you want to know?”

“What was it like to be adopted, to have your world as you knew it so radically change?”

“It's a good question. I knew them, George and Karen Falcon, in the casual way a kid knows adults. They supported the group home through their family charity. They would stop by to speak with the administrator, or be at the head table to share a meal, and I'd see the lady sometimes around the home. She'd be involved with the girls, and they would be giggling.

“I was out on the jungle gym one afternoon, done playing basketball, hanging upside down, thinking about how to get out of school the next day. The music teacher was going to assign roles for the school play, and I didn't want to get selected for a
part. George walked out to the playground and talked with me for a few minutes.

“He asked if I liked living at the home, liked where I went to school, and I kind of shrugged that it was okay. I didn't have much to compare it to. I had a comfortable bed, good food, and kids to play with. It was a good kind of place to be, and I was, for a nine-year-old boy, attached to it in a way. There were adults you had to listen to and rules to follow, and while there wasn't any real sense of family, it was a place I could function and feel like I could be myself. I thought of it as boarding school, and tried to pretend my family was still alive but just far away. I had learned to cope with being on my own.”

Paul reached for his soda. “George returned a few more times that month, enough I knew his name, enough to realize out of all the kids around, he was making a point to find me and chat for a few minutes. There were a couple of weeks where I could feel the emotion setting in, the worry that I had done something wrong to get the attention, the opposite realization I was coming to depend on him stopping by for a few words, that no one had ever done that before, searching to find me. I was eager to see him, and also scared by that, just wondering what was going on.

“One Saturday the administrator had errands to run, and that morning during breakfast my name was drawn out of the hat. I could go along for the day trip if I wanted to. I went with him to the store, the bank, and the post office. Then the administrator said he had a visit to make, and he could either drop me back at the home or I could go along if I could sit quietly through a meal while he talked business. I went with him. We had dinner at George and Karen's house.

“It's a massive home, and I was in awe. I was sitting between Boone and Jackie with Harper across from me, having a cheeseburger and fries, in the house of this man I liked. His kids were all younger than me, and I liked them and was laughing with them, and it felt like a normal evening where dinnertime was a table of kids. I played basketball in the driveway after dinner,
teaching Jackie how to dribble the ball, and showing Boone and Harper how to make a free throw. The evening was over, and I was putting the ball away when George came over and put his hand on my shoulder and said it was nice I had come, and would I mind if he asked me to come over again?

“It became a regular thing, dinner at George and Karen's. They took me out for ice cream after the school play. They stopped by when they were going to go swimming to see if I wanted to come along. I had known them about six months when George asked if I wanted to be part of a family again or if I felt old enough I would rather not be adopted.

“I wasn't expecting the question, because it wasn't something I thought about much. The younger kids got adopted, especially the girls, but no one had ever suggested I would be one of them. My life had been the home, the adults who ran the place. I hadn't thought of being adopted, I had parents who were dead, but I said I did miss having a family and that I didn't like the fact I was alone.

“George knelt down to my height, held out his hand, and he said, ‘If you would like to be part of my family, I would like to be your father. You would be my son, just the same as Harper and Boone. You would have a sister in Jackie, and if Karen has more babies, you'll have even more family to care about. You can be one of us if you want to be.'

“I remember trying not to cry when I said I would. We shook hands on it. I went to live with them the next week, and the adoption went through later that year.

“I remember the first thing George bought me was a phone, and he put everyone's numbers in it, his and Karen's, and all the aunts and uncles and cousins. And he gave it to me and said, ‘This is your family. You should love them, and fight with them, and laugh with them, and spend your life talking with them.' That phone used to ring all the time. It was an embarrassment of riches, how many relatives I had that made a point to call and get to know me.

“He's never really said why he adopted me, when he had kids of his own and knew more were likely. He never said why he chose me, knowing I would be the oldest of his kids. George accepted me as his son, as his eldest son, and has never wavered from that decision.

“I know George thought it all out. Harper said once that he had been asked, did he want to be the eldest son or did he want me as a brother? And he'd said he desperately wanted me as a brother.” Paul stopped, finding it difficult to finish the memory.

“They loved you,” Ann said softly. “By choice. By decision. George loved you the same as he did his other two sons. Harper loved you like his brother Boone. Nothing says we have to limit who we love as family to just those who share our blood.”

“I know. But it still feels weird to me, knowing I got chosen like that. There wasn't anything special about that nine-year-old boy. I was polite enough, and reasonably smart, and I liked people, but I was just one of a thousand boys just like me who didn't have parents. There was no reason for him to adopt me. He already had kids.

“He tried to explain it once. He wanted me to have a father, and when he thought about it over the weeks that went by, he realized he wanted to be that father. He asked me to be his son because he wanted to be my father, no other reason than that.”

“Some things in life are a mystery. Love is one of them,” she said. “You thrive being part of a large family with lots of relations.”

“I do. I don't have the right words for it, but family makes me complete. Having this as an important part of life, having family around to care about and share life with, fills in part of who I am that nothing else ever could.”

He was quiet for a moment, then looked over at her and gave a rueful smile. “And here I'm talking about big families and going from none to many, while you're in the opposite situation, having gone from many to none. I'm sorry for being tactless
about that. Does it bother you enormously to be alone, Ann? To have no family left? Are you surviving that?”

“It's not the same when it comes as an adult as when it happens as a child. I shared years of life with my parents and grandparents. I don't feel like they are missing from my life as much as they are just not here. They've been gone a long time, but I still feel like they could walk through the door any day. So I don't grieve like I once did. I had a good place in life as a child, a sense of who I was as their daughter and granddaughter. It's not that I like being without family or would choose it; it is simply what it is.”