all alone on a filthy mattress, and then having your child ripped from your arms never to be seen again?” Her voice had risen as she’d spoken, her heart pounding as pressure expanded in her chest. She gulped in a shuddery breath. “You can understand that?” she demanded of the pretty woman whose face had turned white as she’d spoken. The woman her son called Mom.
Emery Davies cast her eyes down. She was holding back tears as well. “No, you’re right, of course. We can’t understand that. We only know that the loss you must have felt—are still feeling—is unthinkable,” she said softly. She met Josie’s eyes and Josie saw the tears shimmering there. “But please, think of Reed. We’re the only parents he’s ever known. To take him from us would be to detonate a bomb in his life.”
Josie blinked at them, taking a moment to get hold of herself. They both looked so deeply troubled and she wanted to be understanding toward them, she did, and rationally, she was. But there was also this red haze that filled her brain when she looked at them. An unrelenting bitterness and, yes, she could admit it, jealousy, that gripped her and made her want to shake them. To scream. Surely there had been clues that the adoption wasn’t completely legitimate. Had they seen her story on the news? Had they ever wondered just once at the timing . . . had they decided to turn a blind eye? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t help wondering. Couldn’t help the deep hurt that rose up inside her when she thought of how she’d felt during that time, the debilitating grief she’d been crushed under, not knowing whether her baby was dead or alive, if he was suffering, if he was safe. These people could have stopped that pain. These people had been holding her baby while her arms were empty.
These people hadn’t even told him he was adopted. He didn’t know of her existence at all, had never once thought of the unknown woman who’d carried him within her, and that knowledge cut her to the quick. Because she’d fought so long and so hard, every day, rationing and struggling and surviving so she could give her child life. She gripped her hands in her lap as she attempted to gather control of her spinning emotions. “I know you’ve raised him, and to him, you’re his parents. It will be . . . an adjustment, I understand that. I would never remove you from his life. You can visit him in Oxford where I own a farmhouse. You can even help him get settled, make it as easy for him as possible. I’d be grateful if you would.”
The couple shot each other a wide-eyed glance and then Emery Davies bent toward her large purse where it sat on the floor and pulled what looked like a photo album from it. She handed it to Josie. Her hands were shaking. Josie reached out tentatively, taking the book from Emery’s hands. Their eyes met, these two women who desperately loved the same little boy. Josie looked down, a small gasp emerging from her lips when she saw the photo of the chubby baby on the front cover. She ran a shaking hand over it, her eyes greedily taking in every feature of her son’s face.
He looked like Charles, he did, she couldn’t deny that. But he also looked like her. She saw herself in his eyes, in the particular way his cheek muscles bunched when he smiled. Mostly, he was himself, the unrepeatable combination of genetics that had come together to form this perfect, individual boy. “He’s beautiful,” she said, her voice breathy with emotion.
She looked up at Emery and her eyes were glistening with tears. She nodded. “Yes. He is beautiful. And he’s smart, and kind. He’s the most special little boy I’ve ever known.”
Josie smiled, and for just a moment, she felt not a competitiveness with this woman but a bond. She looked down to the book, opening the front cover and looking through the pictures. His baptism, first birthday, grinning with blue frosting smeared across his joyful face, swim lessons, more birthdays, his front teeth missing. Josie flipped each page, more tears flowing, her eyes moving from one happy memory to another. “He’s had a happy life,” she said.
Emery and Jeb Davies nodded in unison, something desperate in their gaze. She knew what it was. She looked away. These were