Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

Mary Jane made a wry face. “I believe it! It turned out the planned adoption was illegal. The adopting family had been turned down for adoption because the man’s health wasn’t too good and they were financially marginal, but there was this doctor with this clinic in Yucaipa... Well, anyway, he agreed that the baby would be registered as having been born to the adopting parents. But there was a complication: a multiple pregnancy, twins. The second baby would need a mother’s name on the record. So the little bitch borrowed someone else’s. Mine. And my husband’s. The clinic never heard of Estelle Marchand, or Anne Whozit. She was always Mary Jane McCauley to them. I found out all this when she brought the second baby back to my place. She said she couldn’t’ve used her own name without leaving a record that might lead her parents to her. So I said, hey, okay, you can stay till you get on your feet again. My God, I’d even borrowed a thousand dollars to cover her medical expenses. A thousand went further in those days. So guess what she did?”

“Lit out and left you with the baby.”

“After stealing every cent I had in the apartment. She called from a pay phone somewhere to say she wouldn’t be back, no use trying to trace her, she’d pay back the money when she could. She said I’d make a better mommie than she ever could, and hung up.

“Okay. I could’ve turned the baby over to the cops or the welfare people or someone... but I just couldn’t. It would have meant an orphanage, or foster care, or giving her to Estelle’s parents. I thought I’d at least be better than any of them.

“So I did the best I could, and in a few weeks there was Chuck, suing for divorce and custody of the baby he thought was his. I was really tom, you know? I’d had time to get really attached to Katherine. I almost asked Chuck to take me back. But he was all headlong determination. I was reckless and improvident and he’d prove it in court, so full of neurotic malice toward him I’d not even used my medical insurance, risking the life of ‘our’ child just to hide my whereabouts. Of course I hadn’t used my insurance because I’d never had a claim.

“I had this feeling that if I fought like mad I might get to keep Katherine. Isn’t there a prejudice in favor of the mother in these cases? I’d probably get hefty child support, too. But I wasn’t really the baby’s mother, and I really loathed the idea of taking Chuck’s money. And it wouldn’t be much more honest than what Estelle had done to me. And Chuck really could give Katherine things I couldn’t...”

She closed her eyes. For a moment she looked defeated. She opened her eyes and got to her feet and began to pace restlessly.

Tom said, “So you didn’t fight for custody.”

“Token resistance, that’s all. I’ve been praying ever since that I did the right thing.”

Tom said inadequately, “Katherine’s enrolled at UCLA, she’s smart, and she’s gorgeous.”

Mary Jane stopped pacing.

“...I’m so glad.” She made a vague gesture, repeated it, shook her head. She sat down again. “Is there going to be a lot of... unpleasantness about all this? Chuck so hates to be fooled. Or used to.”

“Still does,” Tom said. “Especially if anyone else knows about it. To keep that from happening, I think he’ll bury all this and pave it over.” To his astonishment he heard himself say, “Does he even have to know about it?” and felt a pang of disappointment so profound it was almost completely disorienting.

Distantly, he thought he heard her ask how they could convince Chuck the other twin wasn’t a McCauley without revealing that Katherine wasn’t one either, wouldn’t that take an impossibly high order of damage control? And he thought, Of course: he was coming unglued because he’d allowed himself to talk of damage control when what he really wanted was damage. All the talk of Mac’s wishes had been an excuse for a chance to attack Charles as a fool and a begetter of bastards, to tip Katherine off her pedestal, to get revenge for every time he’d been made to feel inferior, less than a McCauley...

Mary Jane was saying, “Couldn’t Chuck call what I did some kind of fraud?”

He fumbled his way back to the here-and-now and said slowly, “According to her birth certificate, you are Katherine’s mother. A child born to a married woman is presumptively her husband’s, even if they are living apart. No one has any reason to doubt that you are Katherine’s mother.” Except Eileen Farr? Might she know that Estelle had been expecting twins? But she would never say anything, to sustain the fiction that she was Shannon’s mother. “Add the fact that you didn’t force Charles to take responsibility for Katherine, he sought and obtained the right to do so in a court of law. I don’t think you’re in any danger.”

She said, “Do you really think we could fool Chuck?”

“I think it’s worth a try.”

“Why are you on my side all of a sudden?”