Margaret continued.
“Claire hid behind the stairs when you came in because she was shy around men.”
Claire whispered, “The red jacket.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
“You wore a red college jacket.”
He went still.
Claire set the plate on the table carefully.
“You gave me a peppermint.”
Daniel’s face lost color.
“I…”
He looked at Margaret.
“There was a kid.”
Margaret nodded.
“I thought she was somebody from the neighborhood.”
“She was my foster child.”
Daniel stared at his wife.
Claire stared back.
The anger from five minutes earlier had disappeared.
Something much older had taken its place.
Daniel whispered, “You knew?”
Claire shook her head violently.
“No.”
“But you recognized Mama?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I recognized the plate.”
Margaret inhaled sharply.
Claire touched the chip with one finger.
“I thought it looked familiar when I moved in here after we married, but I told myself I was imagining it.”
“You never asked?” Daniel said.
Claire rounded on him.
“Asked what? Whether your mother was the foster mother I lived with for eleven months when I was seven?”
Daniel flinched.
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, Daniel. I didn’t know.”
Her voice rose, but this time Margaret heard fear beneath it.
“I was seven. I had lived in four places before this one. Some apartments. One foster home. One emergency placement. I remembered a kitchen with yellow curtains. I remembered a woman named Miss Margaret. I remembered a boy who came home one night in a red jacket. I remembered this plate.”
Her fingers pressed around its edge.
“But I didn’t remember the address. I didn’t know your mother’s last name. Nobody gave me a family history book.”
