“His name was James Creighton.”
“Whatever his name was!”
“I’m sure you knew his name, Mrs. Antrim. You also knew why he was so interested in your daughter. He had every reason to be.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell me about Amy’s biological father. I believe his name was Bruce Flagler.”
“We don’t say that name. Not ever.”
“Why not?”
“Because he was a mistake. The biggest mistake of my life. I was seventeen years old when I met him. It took me ten long years to finally get away.”
“Where is Bruce now?”
“I have no idea. Probably beating up some other poor woman. If I hadn’t left him when I did, I’d be dead. Maybe Amy would be too.”
“You’d do anything for Amy, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course.” Julianne looked at Amy. “She’s my daughter.”
“But I don’t think she is, Mrs. Antrim.”
Amy looked back and forth at the two women, uncertain what to do. What to say. Her mother had gone very still, but there was no hint of panic in her face. “Amy,” Julianne said calmly, “please go upstairs to my bedroom. Bring down our old photo album. The one with your baby pictures and your birth certificate. It’s in the closet, up on the shelf. And bring me the passport. It’s in my scarf drawer.”
“Mom?” Amy said.
“Go, sweetheart. It’s just a mix-up. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Amy’s legs were trembling as she walked out of the kitchen and climbed the stairs to her parents’ bedroom. She went straight to her mother’s closet and reached up for the stack of photo albums on the shelf. She set them on the bed and found the album her mother wanted. She knew this was the right one because it was decades old and the binding had started to crumble, but she opened the cover just to be sure. On the first page was a picture of a young Julianne standing beneath an oak tree, cradling her black-haired infant in her arms. Facing that photo, on the inside front cover, was a certificate of live birth for Amy Wellman, born in the state of Vermont, weighing five pounds, six ounces. The line for the father’s name was blank. She closed the album and sat on the bed for a moment, thinking about what would happen next. What her mother would do, what she must do.
She crossed the room to her mother’s dresser and slid open the top drawer. Pushed aside the neatly folded silk scarves and reached in for what her mother had asked her to fetch.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” said Jane. “Who her real father was.”
The two women sat facing each other across the kitchen table, the teapot and cups and the plate of lemon bars spread out between them. Such a calm and domestic setting for an interrogation.
“I’ll show you her birth certificate,” said Julianne. “I can show you photos of me holding her, right after she was born, and photos don’t lie. I can prove I’m Amy’s mother.”
“I’m sure the photos are real, Mrs. Antrim. I’m sure you really are Amy’s mother.” Jane paused, her gaze fixed on Julianne. “But the real Amy’s dead. Isn’t she?”
Julianne went very still. Jane could almost see tiny cracks starting to form in that mask she had so carefully maintained.
“How did your real daughter die?” Jane asked quietly.
“She is my daughter.”
“But she’s not Amy. The remains of your daughter—the real Amy—were found two years ago, in a state park in Maine. They were just a short distance from where you once lived with your boyfriend, Bruce Flagler. A carpenter who helped renovate the kitchen of Professor Eloise Creighton. Bruce had a record of domestic abuse and we know he assaulted you. Is that how little Amy died? Did he kill her?”
Julianne said nothing.
“The police didn’t know who those bones belonged to. To them, she was just Baby Girl Doe, left in a shallow grave in the woods. But now we know she did have a name: Amy. I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been for you, losing that little girl. Knowing you were never going to hold her in your arms again. After something like that, I can’t imagine even wanting to be alive.”
“He said it was an accident,” Julianne whispered. “He said she fell down the stairs. I could never be sure what the truth was…” She took a deep breath and stared out the window, as if looking back to that day. To that moment of loss. “I did want to die. I tried to die.”