Chapter 3

The first packet arrived with nine pages withheld.

Olivia printed the cover letter and circled the explanation: third-party information. Beneath it, Cross counsel offered a meeting in place of disclosure.

I knew that offer. Come into our room. Listen to our version. Leave with fewer questions than you brought.

We kept the appointment, but held it at my studio.

Before Adrian arrived, I compared the released statements with the calendar he had shared with me throughout our marriage. His annual personal commitments overlapped with trust reviews for Noah's household. Twice, those reviews had taken place on our anniversary.

He had put the dates in his calendar months ahead.

Last year I had waited in a restaurant until the waiter stopped refilling my water. Adrian had arrived with flowers after ten and said a meeting ran over. I had asked whether he had eaten.

I pressed my thumbnail into the paper until Olivia gently moved it away.

"You can be upset and still do this," she said.

That undid me more than being told I was strong would have. I went into the washroom, cried until my face hurt, and came back before the appointment.

Adrian stood at the worktable instead of taking the chair beside mine. He was looking at a damaged parish register beneath its protective sheet. I had spent three weeks separating pages someone had once tried to save with household glue.

"I remember when you started that," he said.

I placed the withheld-page notice over the glass.

"Start here."

He read the notice.

"Some of those records concern your adoption."

The room did not go quiet. Tessa's paper trimmer continued in the front office. A delivery driver knocked on the shop next door. My life had changed, and the sounds around it kept going.

"My what?"

Adrian looked at Olivia, and I stepped into his line of sight.

He said his father, Victor, had shown him a restricted summary before the wedding. Thomas Bennett was my adoptive father. My birth family had a claim connected to the Cross trust.

I heard each sentence separately. Together, they were too much.

Thomas had taught me to ride a bicycle by running beside it in his work shoes. When my mother died, he slept outside my bedroom because I was afraid he would disappear too. Nothing in that life had contained the word adopted.

"Did you ask him?"

Adrian nodded.

"And neither of you thought to ask me?"

He began to explain the threats his father had described. I stopped him before he could make the decision sound inevitable.

"You knew before I said yes."

"You let me answer a different question."

His hand tightened on the chair. For a moment I thought he would leave. Instead, he asked Olivia what he could release without exposing anyone else's private records.

She set out a narrower authorization. He signed it.

I did not thank him for doing what he could have done yesterday.

The next packet arrived that afternoon. Olivia checked the source with the records custodian while I read. My birth name had been redacted, but an old instruction attached to my support account remained legible.

The Bennett child must never know her real identity.

Below it was Thomas's signature.

I knew the loop in his final t. It appeared on birthday cards, permission slips, the loan agreement for my first conservation course.

I called him. He answered cheerfully, then stopped when I read the instruction aloud.

"Come to the house," he said.

"Will you tell me the truth?"

He took long enough to answer that I nearly ended the call.

"Bring the page."

Adrian offered to drive me. I took my own keys. On the way out, I removed my wedding ring and sealed it in a small specimen envelope from the worktable. I put it in my bag.

Olivia came as far as the car. She did not ask me to decide about the marriage that night.

At the first red light, Thomas called again.

"Claire, before you come inside, there's something else."

"I asked Richard to introduce you to Adrian."