The Shell
## Chapter 5:
The children's section of Libbie Mill library smelled like carpet glue and picture books. Elena arrived at 9:45. She chose a seat at a small round table between the picture book shelves and the beanbag corner. Kid-sized chairs. Her knees almost touched her chin.
Nora walked in at 10:02. She looked like she hadn't slept. Her hair was pulled back in a knot that was already falling apart. She carried a paper coffee cup she didn't drink from.
She sat down across from Elena. Didn't speak right away. Rotated the cup on the table. One full turn. Two.
"You noticed her birthmark," Nora said finally. Not accusing. Flat.
Elena didn't blink. "Yes."
"And you've been looking into me."
"Yes."
"I know. Because your ex-husband called me last night." Nora looked up. Her eyes were red but dry. Cried out, maybe. Or past crying. "He told me you were having another episode. That you do this sometimes, fixate on children who remind you of your daughter. He said it with a lot of sympathy. He sounded very concerned."
"I bet he did."
"He told me you might try to contact me. That I should call him if you did."
"Did you?"
"No." Nora's jaw tightened. "Because Marcus Voss has been calling me for six years. Checking in. Making sure Sophie is okay. Making sure we're settled. Making sure I have what I need." She paused. "Nobody is that generous without a reason."
Elena's hands were under the table. She pressed her thumbs together. Hard.
"When did you get Sophie?" Elena asked.
Nora flinched. Barely. A tremor at the corner of her mouth. "What kind of question is that?"
"An honest one."
Nora looked around the children's section. A toddler in the beanbag corner was chewing on a board book. His mother was reading something on her phone. Nobody was paying attention to the two women at the tiny table.
"Six years ago. March. A woman brought her to me." Nora's voice dropped. "I'd just lost a baby. Stillborn. Thirty-eight weeks. A girl." She stopped. Swallowed. "Her name was going to be Cora."
Elena waited.
"I was in a bad place. Living in Roanoke. Alone. My husband had left during the pregnancy. I had no family nearby, no money, nothing. I was, I don't know. Hollowed out. That's the only word for it."
"And someone brought you a baby."
"A woman. She said her name was Janet. She said she worked for a private adoption agency. That everything was legal. That the birth mother had chosen me specifically. She had paperwork. A birth certificate. Social security card. Everything looked real."
"But it wasn't an agency."
Nora closed her eyes. "I didn't ask questions. I should have. I know I should have. But I was holding this baby and she was warm and alive and she needed me and I needed her and I didn't ask." She opened her eyes. "That's the truth and I have to live with it."
Elena felt something shift inside her chest. Not anger. Not yet. Something more complicated.
"Janet. Did she give a last name?"
"Palmer. Janet Palmer. I looked for her later, years later, after I started wondering. She doesn't exist either."
"What did she look like?"
"Older. Late sixties, maybe seventy. Gray hair, short. Well-dressed. She had this way of talking, very proper, very careful, like every word was planned."
Elena's mouth went dry. "Did she have a ring? A cameo ring, left hand, middle finger?"
Nora stared at her. "How did you know that?"
Because Gloria Voss wore that ring every day of her life. Because Elena had admired it at her first dinner with Marcus's family, and Gloria had smiled and said it belonged to her mother and her mother's mother and someday it would belong to Elena's daughter.
"I know who Janet Palmer is," Elena said.
Nora's coffee cup tipped. Neither of them caught it. The liquid spread across the small table between them, dripping onto the carpet, and they both just watched it happen.
"Marcus set this up," Elena said. "My ex-husband. His mother delivered Sophie to you."
"Why?" Nora's voice cracked. The first crack. "Why would he take his own daughter and give her away?"
Elena knew the answer. She'd known it for years without knowing she knew it. Marcus never wanted children. He'd agreed to the pregnancy because Elena wanted it. He'd smiled at the baby shower and held Lily for photos and performed fatherhood the way he performed everything, competently and without feeling. When Elena filed for divorce three years after the fire, citing irreconcilable differences, what she meant was: you never grieved. Not once. Not at the funeral. Not at the grave. Not in the apartment where her crib still stood for four months because Elena couldn't move it. Marcus never grieved because Marcus knew.
"Because our daughter was inconvenient," Elena said. "And Marcus doesn't keep inconvenient things."
Nora covered her mouth with her scarred hand. Elena looked at the scar.
"How did you get that?" Elena asked.
"The night Janet brought Sophie, I was making formula. The kettle slipped. Boiling water." Nora looked at it. "I was shaking so hard I couldn't hold anything."
They sat in the wet coffee and the silence and the particular horror of two women realizing they were connected by a man who treated people like objects to be arranged.
"I need to know one thing," Nora said. "Are you going to take her from me?"
Elena thought about Sophie. Swish swish swish in her yellow raincoat. Mr. Hops with his uneven ears. You have the same eyes as me.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," Elena said. "But I'm not going to lie to you. Not the way everyone else has."
Nora nodded. That was enough. For now.
Elena stood up. Paused. "The apartment you live in. Greystone Properties. Do you know who owns it?"
"The management company."
"Gloria Voss owns the management company. Marcus's mother."
Nora's face went blank. Not shocked. Past shock. The expression of someone who's been living inside a lie and just felt the walls start to move.
May you like
"She's been watching you," Elena said. "The whole time."
Keep reading Part 6 — because when Elena drives to Gloria's house and says the name "Janet Palmer," the old woman breaks down and tells her the truth about the night of the fire.
