Chapter 4 - Paige
Paige arrived at the hospital at 1:18 in the morning.
I met her in a conference room.
Not Nora’s bedside.
A social worker wanted adults to sort their story away from the child.
Paige was thirty-eight.
Leah’s older sister.
Same eyes.
I remembered them.
That realization made me nauseous.
She looked at me for a long time.
Then:
“You really didn’t know.”
“No.”
She closed her eyes.
“I’m going to kill Claire.”
“No.”
The social worker immediately said:
“Let’s not use that language.”
Paige nodded.
“You’re right.”
Then she looked at me.
“My sister died twelve days ago.”
“What happened?”
“Car accident.”
The room tilted emotionally without moving.
“I’m sorry.”
Paige stared at the floor.
“Leah was driving home from work. A truck crossed through an intersection.”
Instant.
No long illness.
No preparation.
Nora had spent the first five nights after Leah’s death with Paige.
Paige had two children already.
Ten and thirteen.
Her husband traveled for work.
They were grieving too.
While going through Leah’s apartment, Paige found a large envelope inside a locked file box.
On it:
If anything happens to me, read this before making decisions about Nora.
Inside:
Nora’s birth certificate.
Father line blank.
Medical records.
A private DNA report excluding a man named Mason Reed from biological paternity.
Several old photographs.
And a letter.
Paige pushed a photocopy across the table.
I did not touch it at first.
She said:
“Read.”
Leah had written it nine months earlier.
If you are reading this because I cannot handle things myself, there is something you need to know about Nora’s father.
There are two men who could have been her biological father when I became pregnant.
Mason was one.
Ryan Carter was the other.
Mason and I tested privately last year after his mother began asking questions. He is not Nora’s biological father.
Ryan may be.
I never completed testing with him because I made choices years ago that became harder to undo as time passed.
Then:
I contacted Ryan’s partner once when Nora was an infant because I could not reach him directly.
My breathing stopped.
Paige watched.
“Partner.”
Claire.
The letter continued:
She told me Ryan did not want contact and that contacting them again would hurt his family. I believed her because Ryan and I had only been together briefly and he had gone back to Claire.
I looked up.
“No.”
Paige’s face hardened.
“I know.”
“I never said that.”
“I know now.”
The social worker said nothing.
I read again.
Leah had included the old email address.
Claire’s.
Not mine.
Paige continued:
“I emailed Claire six days ago.”
“Why Claire?”
“Because Leah had her address in the file and I couldn’t find a current number for you immediately.”
My phone number had changed two years earlier.
My work information was public enough.
Paige could have found me.
She knew.
“I should’ve tried harder.”
“What did Claire say?”
“That she would tell you.”
I closed my eyes.
“She didn’t.”
“No.”
Then:
“Yesterday Claire called me and said you knew there was a possibility Nora was yours, but you wanted to meet Nora privately before involving lawyers or child services.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“I did not.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because when the police called me, I realized nothing she said lined up.”
Paige began crying.
“I dropped Nora at your house at seven-thirty this morning.”
There.
“Claire said you were coming home at lunch.”
I had been in Baltimore.
“She said Nora could meet Ethan first so it wouldn’t feel like a legal ambush.”
I covered my face.
Paige whispered:
May you like
“I thought I was doing something gentle.”
We sat with the wreckage of two adults who had each believed Claire’s version because it postponed something frightening.
