Mission: Motherhood. Marta Perry

mother was married to an American serviceman who died when the boy was three. I’m still working on finding out all the details. The mother lived in a fairly remote village, and she probably used her family name for the child to protect him from discrimination.”

      “Are you sure they were actually married?” Anna asked the question Caitlyn had been thinking but hesitated to ask.

      “I’ve seen the marriage certificate—it was with her things. The father’s name was Gregory Willis.” He shrugged. “So, the boy’s an American citizen. That has to make a difference.”

      Caitlyn rubbed her temples, as if that might make her mind work a little faster. This was not the sort of legal issue that ever came up at her corporate practice in New York, and she certainly wasn’t an expert on family or immigration law.

      “Will you send us every bit of legal documentation you can find about the parents’ marriage and the child’s birth? I’m sure we’re going to need it to prove that Ali is an American citizen.” She at least knew that was the place to start.

      “Will do.” Mike glanced around. “Gotta go. I’ll send everything I can ASAP. Good luck.”

      Before they could say goodbye, he was gone. Anna sat back in her chair, letting out a long breath. “Well. That’s a new one.”

      “I was hoping you were going to say that COTD had dealt with a situation just like this before,” Caitlyn said.

      “No, I’m afraid this is uncharted territory. It looks as if you have your work cut out for you.”

      And while she was struggling to get up to speed, halfway around the world the clock might well be ticking for a small child who’d already lost far too much.

      “Aren’t we there yet, Aunt Caitlyn?” Amanda, in her booster seat in the back, kicked her feet against the driver’s seat.

      Caitlyn gritted her teeth, making a mental resolution to switch their seats so that Josie would be directly behind her. “Almost.”

      She glanced at the directions her mother had written out to the Fort Bonnell pool where the twins had swimming lessons. This was her first visit to the post, and it was far bigger than she’d realized. Everything about coming here seemed strange, including the stop she’d had to make at the visitors’ center to pick up a pass even to drive onto the post.

      She’d had to leave the Children of the Day offices just when she felt she was getting a handle on the search for Ali’s parentage, but her mother had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, and she’d promised to take the twins for their lesson.

      “I’m going to swim underwater today,” Amanda declared. “Hurry up, please.”

      “Me, too,” Josie echoed.

      She certainly wasn’t going to “hurry up” beyond the speed limit, not with all these military types around. She passed a unit marching along the roadway, and a tank rumbled past her in the opposite direction.

      She didn’t think she’d ever seen so many uniforms in one place before. Funny that she’d never, so far as she remembered, come on the post when she was growing up in Prairie Springs.

      Beige-colored buildings stretched down one straight street after another, seeming to go on and on as far as the horizon. Most of them bore signs in some sort of army shorthand that didn’t mean a thing to her. Goodness, Fort Bonnell was a small city on its own, dwarfing Prairie Springs in comparison.

      She passed the Fort Bonnell Christian Chapel on her right, one of her mother’s landmarks. Steve’s church. She’d called him there earlier, but he hadn’t been in. She needed to involve him, as military liaison for COTD, in the search for Ali’s father.

      She’d confessed to Anna that she was totally out of her depth in dealing with the legal issues of the case. She hated feeling unprepared for any case she took on, but she had to be honest. Her legal background made her at least know the questions to ask, but not the answers.

      Anna had been reassuring, referring her to a local attorney, Jake Hopkins, who offered pro bono services to the charity. Unfortunately, Hopkins hadn’t been in either when she’d called, so she’d left a detailed message on his machine, along with her cell phone number. Surely he’d be able to unscramble this. Maybe the answer was something perfectly simple.

      She spotted the pool ahead and turned into the parking lot to cheers from the girls. She glanced at her watch. They were on time, but barely. She had a lot to learn about balancing work and kids. How did people do this every day?