"I need to feed the cat."

"Let it go. Time to rest." Marcelo squeezed her arm.

"Thank you for being so nice."

"Ron's right, you have to pick up the pieces. I'll help."

"You don't have to."

"I want to. I'm privileged to." Marcelo stroked her arm, and Ellen felt her body relax.

"Am I staying here tonight?"

"Yes."

"Where are you sleeping?"

"You tell me. I do have a spare room, but I'd like to stay here with you."

Ellen's head started to fog. "Is this a date?"

"We're beyond dates."

Ellen closed her eyes. She liked Marcelo's voice, nice and deep, and the accent that made his words sibilant, his speech more like a purr than words. "But what about work? I mean, you're my editor."

"We'll figure it out."

"You were so worried about that, before."

"Let's just say that since then, I've gotten a better perspective."

And whether Marcelo kissed Ellen on the cheek or she just dreamed it, she couldn't tell.

Chapter Eighty-five.

Ellen woke up, and the bedroom was still dark. She was lying on top of the comforter in her clothes, and Marcelo was spooning her, fully clothed, his arm hooked over her waist. The bedside clock glowed 3:46 A.M. A.M., and she waited for sleep to return, but it was as if a switch had been thrown in her brain. A light seared through the dark room of her mind, illuminating every corner, flooding every crack in the plaster, filling the grain in the floorboards, setting even the dust motes ablaze.

Will is gone.

Ellen imagined him in a hotel. He'd be wondering where she was, what had happened, why he wasn't home, why he wasn't with his cat, why he wasn't going to school. Bill would be calling him Timothy and smiling in his face, and there would be lawyers and pediatricians and shrinks, but there would be no mother. His world had been turned upside down and stood on its head. He'd gone from life with a single mother and no father, to a life with a single father and no mother, like the negative to his positive, his existence in obverse.

He's just a little boy.

Ellen knew what she had to do next, or tears would flow and engulf her. She plucked Marcelo's hand from her hip, edged toward the side of the bed, and rolled out as quietly as she could. She padded downstairs in the dark, running her fingertips along the rough brick wall to guide her way. Her feet hit the floor, and she crossed the room to the gla.s.s coffee table, where a black laptop sat with its lid open. She hit a key, and the screensaver appeared, a color photograph of an old wood fishing boat at ebb tide, its orange paint weathered and peeling, with a tangle of worn netting mounded from its bow, in a twilight sun.

She opened Microsoft Word and pressed a key, so that a bright white page popped onto the screen, then slid the laptop around and sat down on the couch, pausing a second before she began. The t.i.tle came easily.

Losing Will

She stopped a minute, looking at it in black and white, the faux newsprint making it real. She swallowed hard, then set her feelings aside. She had to do this for her job. And for Marcelo. And mostly, for herself. Writing had always helped her, before. It always clarified her feelings and her thoughts, and she never felt like she could understand something fully until the very minute that she'd written about it, as if each story was one she told herself and her readers, at the same time. In fact, it was writing that began her relationship to Will, and she found herself coming full circle again, so she began: Last week, I was asked to write a story about what it feels like to lose a child. We were concerned that, among all of the statistics and bar graphs attending an article about the city's escalating homicide rate, the value of a child's life would be lost. So I set out to interview women who had lost children.I spoke with Laticia Williams, whose eight-year-old son Lateef was killed by stray bullets, a victim of violence between two gangs. I also spoke with Susan Sulaman, a Bryn Mawr mother whose two children were abducted by their father several years ago.And now, to their examples, I can add my own.As you may know, I lost my son this week when I learned that, unbeknownst to me, my adoption of him was illegal. My son is, in fact, a child by the name of Timothy Braverman, who was kidnapped from a Florida couple two years ago.I hope you don't think I'm being presumptuous in inserting my own experience into this account. I know that my child is alive, unlike Laticia Williams. But forgive me if I suggest that how you lose a child doesn't alter the fact that, in the end, he is lost to you. Whether you lose him by murder, abduction, or a simple twist of fate, you end up in the same place.Your child is gone.What does it feel like?To Laticia Williams, it feels like anger. A rage like a fire that consumes everything in its path. She feels angry every minute she spends without her child. Angry every night she doesn't put him to bed. Angry every morning that she doesn't pack him his favorite peanut-b.u.t.ter-and-banana sandwich and walk him to school. In her neighborhood, all the mothers walk their kids to school, to make sure they get there alive.Of course, that the children remain alive after they get home is not guaranteed.Her son "Teef" was shot in his own living room, while he was watching TV, by bullets that flew in through a window to find their lethal marks in his young cheek. The funeral director who prepared Lateef's body for burial took all night to restore the child's face. His teacher said he was the cla.s.s clown, a leader among his cla.s.smates, who stuffed his desk with posthumous Valentines.To Susan Sulaman, losing a child feels like emptiness. A profound vacancy in her heart and her life. Because her children are alive with their father, or so she a.s.sumes, she looks for them everywhere she goes. At night, she drives around neighborhoods where they might live, hoping for a chance sighting. In the daytime, she scans the small faces on school buses that speed past.Susan Sulaman is haunted by her loss.I asked her if she felt better knowing that at least the children were in their father's hands. Her answer?"No. I'm their mother. They need me."I know just how she feels, and Laticia, too. I'm angry, I feel haunted, and it's still fresh. It's so new, a wound still bleeding, the flesh torn apart, the gash swollen and puffy, yet to be sewn together or grafted, years from scar tissue, b.u.mpy and hard.Losing Will feels like a death.My mother died recently, and it feels a lot like that. Suddenly, someone who was at the center of your life is gone, excised as quickly as an apple is cored, a sharp spike driven down the center of your world, then a cruel flick of the wrist and the almost surgical extraction of your very heart.And like a death, it does not end the relationship.I am still the daughter of my mother, though she is gone. And I am still the mother of Will Gleeson, though he is gone, too.I have learned that the love a mother has for her child is unique among human emotions. Every mother knows this instinctively, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need articulating.And it remains true, whether the child is adopted or not. That, I didn't know before, but I've learned it now. Just as it doesn't matter how you lose your child, it doesn't matter how you find him, either. There's a certain symmetry in that, but it's no comfort now.I didn't give birth to Will, but I am tied to him as surely as if we shared blood. I am his real mother.It's the love, that binds.I fell in love with Will the moment I saw him in a hospital ward, with tubes taped under his nose to hold them in place, fighting for his life. From that day forward, he was mine.And though, as his mother, I certainly felt tired at times, I never tired of looking at him. I never tired of watching him eat. I never tired of hearing the sound of his voice or the words he made up, like the name of our cat. I never tired of seeing him play with Legos.I did did tire of stepping on them in bare feet. tire of stepping on them in bare feet.It's hard to compare loves, and it may be silly to try, but I have learned something from my experience in losing Will. Because I have loved before, certainly. I have loved men before, and I might even be falling in love with a man now.Here is how a mother's love is different:You may fall out of love with a man.But you will never fall out of love with your child.Even after he is gone.

Ellen sat back and read the last line again, but it began to blur, and she knew why.

"Ellen?" Marcelo asked softly, coming down the stairs.

"I finished my piece." She wiped her eyes with her hand, but Marcelo crossed to her through the darkness, his mouth a concerned shadow in the glow of the screen. He reached for her hand.

"Let's go lie down," he whispered, pulling her gently to her feet.

Chapter Eighty-six.

The next morning dawned clear, and Ellen rode in the pa.s.senger seat of Marcelo's car, looking out the window, squinting against the brightness of the sun on the newfallen snow. Its top layer had hardened in the cold, and the crust took on a smooth sheen. The streets on the way to her house had been plowed, leaving waist-high wedges beside the parked cars.

They turned a corner, and a trio of kids in snowsuits and scarves played on the mounds. One child, a girl named Jenny Waters, was from Will's cla.s.s, and Ellen looked away, pained. They left Montgomery Avenue, and she noticed how the landscape had changed with the snow. It made unrecognizable blobs of shrubs, lay like a mattress on the roofs of parked cars, and lined the length of barren tree branches, doubling their thickness. Everything familiar had changed, and she tried not to see it as a bad metaphor.

Last night after she'd finished her piece, she'd fallen back to only a restless sleep and felt raw and nervous inside. A morning shower had helped, and she'd changed her top, slipping into an old gray sweater of Marcelo's. Her hair was still wet, falling loose to her shoulders, and she didn't bother with any makeup. She took it as a measure of confidence in her new relationship, and she didn't want to see her own face in the mirror, anyway.

"I should call my father," Ellen said, mentally switching topics.

"Your phone's in your purse. I charged it for you."

"Thanks. I feel bad that I didn't call Connie, either. She's probably at a football game today. She loves Penn State."

"She called you, and I spoke to her. She's meeting us at your house. I hope that's okay with you. She thought it would be."

"It is, sure." Ellen felt her heart gladden. "How is she? Is she okay?"

"She's very upset, but I think it will do you good to see her." Marcelo swung the car onto her street, and Ellen swallowed hard as she looked at her house. Newsvans parked in every available s.p.a.ce, with microwave towers that pierced the blue sky. Reporters with videocameras mobbed her sidewalk.

Ellen said, "I hate the press."

"Me, too." Marcelo's gaze shifted to her, worried. "Would you like me to go around the block, one time?"

"No, let's do it." Ellen pulled her coat closer around her.

"Looks like national, too, and TV." Marcelo craned his neck, slowing the car as they neared the house. "I'll let you read Sal's piece before we file."

"You filing this afternoon, by two?"

"It can wait. I'll email it to you."

"Thanks." Ellen knew he was pushing the deadline for her. "Are you coming in?"

"If you would like. I'm happy to meet Connie."

"Come in and meet her, then I think I'll be okay." They approached the house, and to Ellen's surprise, her neighbor Mrs. Knox was out front, ignoring the reporters and shoveling her walk for her. The sight gave her a sudden pang, of guilt and grat.i.tude. Maybe she wasn't such a busybody, after all.

"Here we go." Marcelo pulled up, double-parked, and hit the emergency lights. "We'll have to do this fast."

"Okay." Ellen grabbed her purse, and they both opened the doors and jumped out. She hustled around the front of the car, almost slipping on the snow, and Marcelo took her arm and they hurried together to her front walk. The reporters surged toward them almost as one, brandishing microphones, aiming videocameras, and shouting questions.

"Ellen, when did you know he was Timothy Braverman?" "Ellen, were you gonna give him back?" "Marcelo!" "Hey, El, how did the FBI find out who your son was?" "Ellen, aren't you gonna make a statement? Marcelo, give us a break! You're one of us!"

Ellen hurried up her walk with Marcelo right behind her, keeping the press at bay. She hustled to the porch steps, spraying snow, and crossed to the front door, which Connie opened for her.

"Connie!" she cried, more in anguish than in greeting, and the women fell into each other's arms.

Chapter Eighty-seven.

After Marcelo had gone home, Ellen sat with Connie in the living room, telling her everything while they shared a box of tissues, and they cried all over again when they came to the same awful conclusion, that Will was gone from both their lives.

"I can't believe this happened." Connie mopped up her eyes with a Kleenex, her voice raspy. "It's unreal."

"I know." Ellen kept stroking Oreo Figaro, who sat in a silky ball on her lap.

"I hope you don't mind, but I got here early and I went up to his room. I looked around at all the stuff, all his toys, all his books." Connie sighed, her chest heaving in her sweatshirt. "I put his books away, force of habit, and I closed his door. I didn't think you'd want to go in. Is that okay?"

"It's all okay. Anything you do is okay."

Connie smiled sadly, her ponytail on her shoulder. "I should've read to him more. I didn't read to him enough."

"You read to him plenty."

"You thought I should read to him more." Connie looked at her directly, c.o.c.king her head, her eyes glistening. "You used to think that, didn't you?"

"You were the best babysitter I could have ever asked for."

"Really?" Connie asked, her voice breaking, and she dabbed at fresh tears.

"Really. You can't imagine how grateful I am to you. I could never have done my job without you, and I needed to do my job. For Will and for me."

"Thanks for saying that."

"I should have said it before, a thousand times. It's true." Ellen scratched behind Oreo Figaro's ear, and he began to purr happily, his chest thrumming against the palm of her hand. "You know, I used to be a little jealous."

"Of what?"

"Of you, of your time with Will. Of how close you were. I used to not like it that you loved him, and he loved you. It threatened me."

Connie remained silent, inclining her head, listening. The sun coming through the living room windows was too bright to bear, and Ellen didn't really understand what was powering her confession. But it didn't matter why she said it, only that it needed saying, so she continued.

"I'm sorry about that, because now I know better. The more people who loved that boy, the better. We loved him up, really, between the two of us." Ellen felt her eyes fill again, but blinked them clear. "I used to think that kids were like a gla.s.s or something, that they'd break if you poured too much love into them. But they're like the ocean. You can fill them up with love, and just when you think you've reached the brim, you can keep on pouring."

Connie sniffled. "Agree, but here's the thing. Will may have loved me, but he always knew who his mother was. He knew the difference between you and me, and he never forgot it."

"You think?" Ellen asked, though the words only hurt more now that he was gone.

"I know. I've sat for kids all my life, and take it from me, the kids always know who Mom is. Always."

"Thanks." Ellen set the cat aside on the couch and rose slowly, on joints that seemed suddenly stiff. "Well, I guess I have to go see what the kitchen looks like."

"No, you don't." Connie wiped her eyes with finality. "I went in there. It made me sick to see it, and it'll make you even sicker."

"I have to live here. I thought about moving, but no way." Ellen walked into the dining room, which was still in disarray. She flashed on Carol on the floor next to her, the two of them looking up at Rob Moore, standing behind the muzzle of his gun.

"I know it's not a crime scene anymore. But I didn't know whether to put the chairs in order or not."

"I will." Ellen picked up a chair from the floor and slid it noisily into place under the table, then did the same to the other, feeling the beginning of an odd sort of satisfaction. Maybe this was what everybody meant by picking up the pieces. She took a deep breath, braced herself, and headed for the kitchen threshold. "Let's see how bad it is."

"Right behind you," Connie said, and they both stood together, eyeing the kitchen.

My G.o.d.

Ellen supported herself against the doorjamb, scanning the scene. A large, shiny pool of black-red blood had dried into the floorboards, filling the grain and knots in the hardwood, making a macabre drawing etched in ink. It must have been where Carol had died.

"Disgusting, huh?" Connie asked, and Ellen nodded, her chest tight. She flashed on poor Carol, her arms raised protectively, then chased that thought away.

Across the room, near the back door, lay another island of blood, smaller but just as nauseating, where Moore must have fallen. The stink of gasoline hung in the air, and a dozen yellow spots stained the floor where the solvent had splattered. She squeezed her eyes shut against an instant replay of Will's mouth taped shut, his snowsuit drenched with gasoline.

"I told you it was bad."

"It's worse than bad." Ellen bit her lip, thinking. "Do you think I can scrub the blood out?"