Chapter 6
We drove back immediately.
Heavy rain had started.
St. Catherine’s stood dark behind iron gates.
The place looked smaller than memory.
The brick walls once felt endless.
Now I saw cracked gutters.
Old windows.
A roof Serena’s gala claimed needed repair.
At least that part was true.
Martha knew every hiding place.
Kitchen pantry.
Laundry cupboards.
Old chapel loft.
Basement boiler room.
No Eli.
Then she stopped in front of Dormitory B.
“My old boys’ room,” I said.
She nodded.
Locker seventeen had been mine.
The brass key fit.
Inside:
Nothing.
Then I noticed fresh scratches beneath the bottom shelf.
Rafe lifted it.
A narrow cavity.
Blanket.
Water bottle.
Crackers.
And Eli.
Curled against the back wall holding the black notebook to his chest.
Alive.
Martha dropped to her knees.
“Sweetheart.”
He looked at Gideon behind us and recoiled.
I immediately stepped between them.
Gideon stopped.
Good.
I crouched.
“Eli?”
He stared at me.
Then the tattoos on my fingers.
Then my face.
“You’re Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
He knew me from photographs.
Every child there did.
The success story.
The orphan who came back rich.
A mythology I increasingly disliked.
Eli held out the notebook.
“I didn’t steal it.”
“I know.”
“Mr. Vale said it belonged to him.”
“Does it?”
Eli shook his head.
“It says your name.”
I took the book only after he released it.
Important.
First page:
ST. CATHERINE’S PRIVATE INTAKE — 1983–1987.
Names.
Dates.
Private arrangements.
Then mine.
INFANT MALE — GABRIEL.
MOTHER: MARGARET VALE.
FATHER: UNKNOWN.
PLACEMENT REQUESTED BY VINCENT VALE.
I looked at Gideon.
“Vincent?”
“My father.”
Serena’s grandfather.
My grandfather.
The old Vale patriarch.
Dead twelve years.
Another line:
MOTHER OBJECTS. FAMILY REQUEST OVERRIDES.
My vision narrowed.
Margaret had not abandoned me.
Her family had.
I kept reading.
Three weeks after my birth, Margaret returned asking for her child.
Turned away.
Again six months later.
Turned away.
Then the entries stopped.
I looked at Gideon.
“What happened to her?”
He whispered:
“She died when you were two.”
I stared.
“Knowing I was here?”
“Yes.”
The lie I had built my identity around collapsed quietly.
I was not unwanted.
May you like
I had been kept from someone who came back for me.
And Serena had known enough of this to empty the building before I ever opened locker seventeen.
