Page 103 of The Angel Maker

“I know.”

“But I know you won’t have done anything wrong.”

“Do you though?”

Her mother looked down at the cane again.

“I know full well that—whatever’s happened—it will be because you were trying to do the right thing. To help your brother. To helppeople. Because that’s what you’ve always done. And I also know I haven’t been as supportive as I could have been.”

She began turning the cane thoughtfully in her hand again.

“But what you said just now,” she told Katie, “it’s not right and it’s not fair. I understand you feeling that way. Perhaps your father and I did treat the two of you differently. And maybe thatwasbecause of the manner in which Chris came to us. Sometimes it felt like he’d been left there for us in that church. Like we’d been trusted with something we needed to keep safe.”

The cane was still turning.

“You just told me we never loved you as much as Chris,” she said. “But we did.I do, Katie. It’s just that you were always so confident. So capable. So strong-willed. You knew exactly what you were going to do and you just went right out and did it. But Chris was never like that. And that’s really all there is to it. You neverneededour help the way he did.”

Her mother stopped turning the cane and looked up at her.

“But you needed my help just now, I think. And so you had it.”

A beat of silence in the room.

“Thank you,” Katie said. “For that.”

“You’re welcome.”

Katie looked down at the box. The newspaper clippings about Nathaniel Leland were still on top, and she reached down and picked one out.

One of your father’s fancies.

Her mother’s phrasing had disturbed her yesterday, but having learned what she had, she thought she understood now.

“Dad thought this might be Chris?”

“He wondered. Your father was always interested in finding out who Chris really was. He knew it didn’t matter—that Chris was our son, and that was the end of it—but he also thought that one day it might be important forChristo know where he’d come from. I didn’t really appreciate that at the time. But I do a little more now. People need to know who they are.”

“Why did Dad think this boy might be Chris?”

Her mother shrugged.

“Because Chris came from somewhere. Children don’t simply appear—however much you wish them to. And that little boy, Nathaniel Leland, was about the right age and had vanished at about the right time. That’s all there was to it.”

“But the police must have checked?”

“Yes, of course. We found that out when your father began looking into it. We spoke to the adoption people and they told us the possibility had been investigated and ruled out. The man—that poor missing baby’s father—they took him to see Chris in the hospital, just after he’d been found. And he…”

Her mother trailed off and looked down again.

“What?” Katie said.

Her mother sighed softly.

“Nathaniel Leland’s fatherscreamedat the sight of Chris,” she said. “Screamed as though his whole world had just come apart.”

There was another moment of silence in the room.

And then Katie felt a vibration in her pocket.

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