The Office of Historical Corrections(36)

“I’m listening,” said Vera.

“He was supposed to be with his mother and next thing I know she stops letting me talk to him on the phone. She moved to Jersey, to be with some guy, and said she didn’t want me calling. Sometimes I’d call anyway, and get the little girl—not mine, but I’d been around since she was little—and when I’d ask her about William she’d start crying. Then the guy they were living with took off, and my ex turned up dead. Overdose. Poor kid found her mother like that. They gave her to her grandma, who never liked me any, and she either can’t or won’t say what happened to my boy. All she says is that he wasn’t in the house. But he’s two. How far could he go?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Vera.

“I just want my son.”



* * *



—

For the next week it was Vera who walked around in a fog. Derek and Adam had gone into panic mode. They’d been cooperating while stalling when they could, but Jacob’s mother wouldn’t accept a settlement offer until their financial records had been released in discovery. They were worried that a thorough audit would reveal too many irregularities. On Monday Derek asked Vera to stay late. When they locked up for the day, he led her into the back room.

“We’re taking off,” he said. “New IDs, enough money to lie low for a while. Eventually we’ll figure something out. There’s a guy with a grow op who thinks everything will be legal soon.”

“Where?” said Vera. “When?”

“Cali,” said Derek. “Two weeks. Adam knows a guy.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“You can come with us,” said Derek. “You should probably get out of town for a while anyway.”

The possibility dangled in front of her like a brass ring. She’d come this far. She could go farther. She could keep William. She could keep Derek. She pictured William all grown up, the chubbiness stretched out of his cheeks. “I grew up on a farm,” he’d say. “I’m pretty sure my parents did something shady for money, but man were they in love.” She tried to picture California but found she didn’t even have an image of it in her mind, only a vague fear of earthquakes.

“Get me the paperwork,” said Vera. “Let me think about it.”

She packed what would fit in her suitcase, and sold the rest. When William’s bed was gone she kept him with her, on a blanket on the floor, clinging to him. She gave notice to her landlady and came home from work the next day to find the apartment already being shown to a daunted would-be subletter. At the end of the week, Derek left an envelope on her desk, with a California ID with her picture and the name Jessica. There was also a birth certificate for William, who’d been renamed Joshua. At the office, their days were measured in shredded paper, the whir of the shredding machines a threat and a promise. If everything could be erased, anything could disappear. If you could erase everything, you could start again.



* * *



—

    She wanted to see the father before she made any decisions. She equivocated on making Derek any promises. She didn’t love him enough to make up for William’s potential absence, and so she didn’t see the point in pretending. She helped him pack. She kept his necklace around her neck. She buzzed Derek’s locks off with an electric razor. She dyed Adam’s blond hair black. Vera spent Derek and Adam’s last night in New York at the loft with them. She made margaritas. She curled up in Derek’s arms and imagined trying to explain to him how much bigger her guilt was than theirs. She got up before dawn and made them breakfast and kissed Derek goodbye. He offered to leave her with an address of a person he said would be able to tell her where to find them, and she said maybe it was better if he didn’t.

The next day, she and William got on a bus to Chicago. She bundled him in layers of winter clothing—a turtleneck, a sweater, a hooded jacket, and the hat Derek had bought him. He was uncharacteristically fussy, insisting that he was hot and itchy. One by one the outer layers were removed. From their stopover in Cleveland, Vera called Eileen, a friend in school in Chicago. She hadn’t seen Eileen in years, but they’d gone to high school together, and when she said she needed a place to stay for the night, Eileen offered to come get her at the bus station.

“My God, you have a kid!” she said when she saw them. “He’s so big.”

“He’s almost three,” said Vera.

“How was New York?” asked Eileen.

“Beautiful,” said Vera. “Exhausting.”

Eileen brought them back to her one-bedroom apartment in Hyde Park. She pulled out the sofa and told Vera to make herself at home. Vera turned on a cartoon show and combed William’s hair. She kissed the top of his head and told him she loved him. She remembered being a child, seated between her mother’s legs watching TV while her mother parted and braided her hair, and felt, for the first time in years, homesick, sick for everything she could still lose.

She slept poorly. Over coffee, Vera asked if Eileen could keep an eye on William while she ran a quick errand. Vera took a cab to William’s father’s address. It was an old brick row house, beaten up a bit, but not neglected. The lawn was mowed, and the shutters had been recently painted. She walked around the block a few times and feigned interest in a house for sale across the street. bank owned! read its sign. On her fifth circle around the block, she saw the door to the house open, and the man from the photograph come out, then turn behind him to help an older woman down the stairs. Both of them resembled William. He had a father. He had a grandmother. He had never been hers. They looked up. For a second, Vera thought William Sr. was pointing at her, and she was ready to confess. Then she realized he was pointing past her, at the foreclosed house, its overgrown lawn.