The Volunteer
Chapter 09 - The Volunteer
Adrian denied recognizing the signature. He said it wasn't his handwriting, that somebody must have copied his name, that the hospital had been full of volunteers and mistakes were common. By the third explanation his attorney had asked him to stop talking.
Nora Feld compared the statement with a personnel form signed by Adrian in 2001. The handwriting looked consistent, but Nora insisted that resemblance wasn't proof. She sent both to a document examiner. Meanwhile Helena remembered a quiet young volunteer who carried transfer paperwork between the nursery and the administrative office. He had worked there for one summer and disappeared before the records review began.
"You remember his face?" Allison asked.
"I remember he always held the clipboard against his chest. He seemed shy. I didn't know his surname until I looked at my old notes."
Allison went home to Grace's guest room and looked at photographs of Adrian when they first met. In 2008 he had been thinner, with long hair that curled at his collar and a habit of making jokes when he was nervous. They had met at a fundraiser for literacy programs, where Allison worked part-time. He'd asked her about the book she was reading rather than the donors she knew. She had thought that was a sign of character.
She called him once more, against Grace's advice. "Were you at St. Catherine's when my daughter was born?"
There was a pause long enough for the truth to arrive before his answer.
"Yes," he said.
"Did you know?"
"Not then. I signed for an infant transfer. I was twenty. It was a form somebody put in front of me. I didn't know the mother."
"And when you met me?"
"I knew your name sounded familiar. I didn't think much of it. Years later, after the records started resurfacing, I checked. I recognized the date."
"How many years later?"
"Two."
Allison closed her eyes. "You didn't tell me because you had already hidden the letters."
"I was ashamed."
"I am so tired of that word coming after what you did."
He asked her if she still loved him. She almost hung up. Instead she said, "I don't know what love is worth when it is used to excuse keeping someone ignorant."
The examiner's preliminary review supported the authenticity of Adrian's signature; he no longer disputed that he had worked at the clinic. The finding didn't establish that he knew the transfer was unauthorized at the time. Nora was careful about that distinction, even when Allison wished the facts would arrange themselves into an easier judgment.
Allison had once imagined that truth would arrive all at once, like the lights coming on in a theater. Instead it appeared in separate rooms, each revealing a different failure. She could not make herself respect Adrian's concealment, but she could refuse to accuse him of things the records didn't show. It mattered to her that she not become careless with the truth merely because others had been.
At the laboratory Nora collected the sealed results and asked whether both women wanted to open them together. Emily had spent the previous night sorting Marta's recipes, not because she was hungry but because measuring flour gave her fingers something to do. Allison had not slept much either. They sat across from each other at a little conference table. Nora opened the envelope and read only what they had consented to learn.
The DNA analysis strongly supported a biological mother-daughter relationship. Additional identity verification was complete. There was no ambiguity in the result.
Allison made a sound so soft Emily almost missed it. She had imagined joy would arrive with trumpets. Instead it came like the loosening of a tight band around her ribs. She could finally breathe, and that hurt.
"Hello," she said, feeling foolish.
Emily laughed, then cried, then laughed again. "Hi."
Neither woman reached across the table. After a minute Emily asked if Allison would mind walking with her. They went around the block three times, speaking about everything except the result. The trees were bright copper. A delivery driver leaned against his truck eating a sandwich. Somewhere a dog barked at a bicycle. The world had the nerve to continue normally.
"I don't know what to call you," Emily admitted.
"Allison is fine."
"And Marta is still my mom."
"Yes. I hope she always will be."
Emily turned toward her, studying the dark eyes and the worried line between her brows. "You don't have to be so careful with every word."
"I do, a little. I've waited a long time to speak to you. I don't want to start by saying the wrong thing."
"You'll say the wrong thing eventually. So will I."
"Then we might stand a chance."
They shared a small smile. It did not repair anything, but it was theirs.
That afternoon Luca visited the hospital's former records building, now a law firm's storage facility. His father had invested in the purchase years earlier through a Moretti company. Luca had inherited both the property and an obligation to maintain archival access under the sale agreement. For the first time he understood that this dull contractual condition might be more important than the building itself.
His lawyer obtained an inventory from the lawful custodian. The box removed by Adrian and Vanessa was only one of several. One remained sealed under a preservation order from a separate lawsuit. The description read: *Maternity Program — Executive Correspondence — 1998-2003.*
They could not simply open it. Nora prepared a request through the appropriate legal process, and the custodian agreed to preserve it while the court considered access. Victor's lawyer objected immediately, calling the request a fishing expedition.
Luca knew that phrase. His own attorneys had used it on people with less money than his family.
In the evening Emily arrived at the mansion to collect her last paycheck and decide whether she wanted to return. Mrs. Bell met her in the staff hall with a paper bag of butter cookies. The familiar sight nearly undid her more than the DNA results had.
"I won't be coming back," Emily said. "I think I need to find work that doesn't involve this family for a while."
"Good. I'll put in a reference that embarrasses your next employer into hiring you."
May you like
As they embraced, Luca appeared with a final document the custodian had voluntarily released because it was not under seal: a delivery log dated October 15, 2001. It showed that the infant listed under Allison's hospital number had not gone directly to Marta Carter's home.
For three days, the baby had been kept at a private guest residence owned by Victor Bellini. And during those three days, someone had changed the child's recorded mother's name.
