Chapter 4 - The True Destination
Ethan didn't drop the papers. He held them out, his hands shaking slightly. "Grace... what is this? Who is Leo?"
Grace slowly set the laundry basket down on the floor. She walked over to the mudroom bench and sat down, her posture collapsing for the very first time since she had walked into his home six weeks ago. She looked twenty years older under the soft gold lighting.
"Leo is my son," she said, her voice thick with a decade of unshed tears. "I was twenty-nine, living in a town where the coal mines had shut down and the water ran red from the runoff. I didn't have a dollar to my name, Mr. Whitaker. No family left, no job, no electricity in the winter. When he was born, he had a respiratory condition that needed a specialist in Lexington. The state told me if I couldn't pay for the treatments, they'd put him in foster care."
She wiped a rogue tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. "A lawyer came to town. Said there was a wealthy couple up north in Illinois who couldn't have children. Said they'd pay for every medical bill, put him in the best schools, give him a life where he’d never have to look at a dark mountain and wonder if he’d starve. So I signed the papers. I gave him away so he could breathe."
Ethan swallowed hard, looking from the papers to her plain cardigan. "Then why are you here? Why are you working in Lake Forest?"
"Because the Vances—the couple who adopted him—they live in Winnetka," Grace whispered, looking up at him with raw, defensive agony. "Every day at 5:00 PM, when I leave this house, I don't go to an apartment, Mr. Whitaker. I drive to the public park across the street from the Winnetka country day school. I sit in my car with that empty brown bag, and I watch my son walk out of the gates. I watch him laugh with his friends. I watch him get into a safe, warm car."
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She choked back a sob, pointing to the brown tote. "I carry that bag empty because it's the only thing I have left that belonged to his grandmother. I kept it empty because I told myself that one day, if I worked hard enough, if I saved enough money from cleaning these big, beautiful homes, I could buy a small house near here. And maybe, when he turns eighteen, if he ever wants to know who his real mother was, I could bring him to a home that wasn't empty. I could show him I didn't leave him because I didn't love him."
She stood up, her shoulders trembling. "I knew if I worked for families in Winnetka, someone might recognize my face from the old adoption records. So I took jobs here in Lake Forest. Close enough to see him, far enough to keep his life perfect. I never meant to involve Noah. I swear to you, I never told that boy a thing about my past."
