Chapter 2 - THE PROOF SHE KEPT IN HER POCKET
The X-ray had been taken when Callum was six days old.
Hartford Children’s Hospital.
December 1991.
Behind it were two pages from his pediatric surgical record.
Callum read them at the dock while Marin held Elise against her chest.
Lorraine stood several feet away.
Nobody invited her closer.
“You had surgery?” Marin asked.
Callum shook his head slowly.
“I knew they separated two toes when I was little. I didn’t know there were records like this.”
Lorraine recovered enough to straighten her scarf.
“It’s meaningless.”
Marin looked at her.
“Then why were you carrying it?”
Lorraine ignored her.
“Callum, a minor physical similarity proves nothing.”
“No one said it proved paternity.”
“You know what I mean.”
Marin did.
That was the problem.
Lorraine had already decided what every fact was allowed to mean.
When Elise had been born, a nurse noticed the partial syndactyly during the newborn exam.
Lorraine had been in the hospital room.
She had stared at Elise’s feet for a strangely long time.
Marin remembered it now.
At the time, she assumed Lorraine was being critical.
Lorraine had criticized almost everything else.
The hospital blanket was too rough.
The middle name was “too trendy.”
Marin was nursing too frequently.
Callum held the baby incorrectly.
Nothing was ever simply theirs.
Three days later, Lorraine announced that she was going home to Old Saybrook.
Apparently she had done something else first.
“When did you request these records?” Callum asked.
His mother looked toward the river.
“After Elise was born.”
Marin felt heat rise into her face.
“So you saw her toes, requested your son’s old records, confirmed he had the same thing—and still spent four months suggesting I cheated?”
Lorraine’s head snapped toward her.
“I never said it until today.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Callum went still.
Marin saw it.
“Callum?”
He looked down.
Lorraine said sharply, “Don’t.”
Marin turned to her husband.
“She said it before.”
He rubbed his jaw.
Not denial.
Delay.
“Callum.”
“Mom had questions.”
“When?”
“A few weeks after Elise was born.”
Marin stared at him.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I thought it was ridiculous.”
“So ridiculous you kept it secret?”
“I was trying to shut it down.”
Lorraine stepped forward.
“I was protecting my son.”
Marin laughed once.
“You almost pulled my daughter over a railing.”
“I would never hurt Elise.”
“You already did.”
The baby began fussing.
Marin moved farther from Lorraine and rocked her gently.
Callum tried to touch Marin’s arm.
She stepped away.
His hand dropped.
That small movement hurt him more than shouting would have.
Lorraine watched it.
And Marin saw something unsettling.
For just a second, satisfaction appeared in her mother-in-law’s face.
Not because Elise was crying.
May you like
Because Marin had moved away from Callum.
That was when Marin began wondering whether paternity had ever been Lorraine’s real concern.
