At the Center. Dorothy Van Soest

was that, end of discussion.

      “I bet Grandpa would like to dig worms with you,” she said.

      “Wanna, Grandpa Harold? Please?” Jamie grabbed his grandfather’s hand and pulled him toward the door. Tommy tagged along behind, his freckled nose twitching on his goofy-looking face.

      —

      Half an hour later, Mary called them in to get ready for the parade. She instructed Jamie to wash the mud from his hands and then change his clothes. She laid out his new red, white, and blue T-shirt and his clean jean shorts on his bed. Harold hurriedly changed into his old World War II army uniform. Since he always marched with the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Memorial Day, he had to leave early.

      “I’ll be right behind the American Legion Band,” he told Jamie before he went. “Don’t forget to wave to me.”

      It was only a two-block walk to Main Street, but by the time they reached it, everyone in town was already there. Wayne lifted Jamie up on his broad football shoulders so he could see over all the heads. When the veterans came into view Jamie waved his arms so hard he nearly fell from his perch. Mary gasped and Wayne increased his grip on his son’s ankles.

      “Here I am, Grandpa! Over here! Here!”

      “He can’t hear you, sweetie,” Mary shouted up to him. “The band’s too loud.”

      Couldn’t he at least nod to his grandson? she thought. Doesn’t he know we always watch the parade from in front of the five-and-dime store? She glanced down at her mother-in-law, sitting on a lawn chair by the curb and watching her husband with a face blank with restraint—or was it simply a lack of awareness—that was as remarkable to Mary as it was irritating. But then Rose looked up at her with a warm smile that melted her frustration.

      The parade, which made up in passion for what it lacked in size, seemed to be over as soon as it started. The town cop rode by on his motorcycle and people started to fold up their lawn chairs and head toward picnic lunches with their families.

      Back home, Mary, Wayne, and Rose carried the food out to the deck while Harold—still in his army uniform—regaled Jamie with war stories. Tommy showed up like he always did when it was time to eat. Jamie reached for one of the meat pies—stuffed with ground pork and beef, potatoes, rutabagas, carrots, and onions and displayed on a platter like spokes on a wheel—and smothered the crust with ketchup.

      “Hey, chief, don’t you have a birthday coming soon?” Harold said with a wink.

      “I’m going to be seven,” Jamie said with his mouth full.

      “What kind of party you having this year?” Grandma Rose asked.

      Jamie jumped up from the bench with both hands raised in the air. “Pirates!” he yelled. “Mom’s gonna make a sign for across the driveway that says Landlubbers Beware, and we’re gonna cover the picnic table with black and make it into a ship with a skull and crossbones flag on a mast in the middle. We’re gonna have a treasure hunt and play games like walk the plank and pin the eye-patch on the pirate and everything.”

      “Don’t forget movie time,” Wayne said.

      Mary saw Jamie shrug. She wondered if he might be embarrassed to have his father show films from all his previous parties and point out how much the boys grew from year to year. She would have to talk to Wayne about it.

      “The invitation is a treasure chest,” Jamie said. “There’s a map inside. Can I go get one, Mom?”

      “Of course, sweetie.”

      “My, my,” Grandma Rose said after Jamie and Tommy had disappeared into the house. “He was so tiny when you first took him in. Just as if he were your own.”

      Mary bit her tongue. She thought of all the times she cooed and sang to the rhythm of the rocking chair while Jamie sucked on the bottle until his little belly was round and his eyes closed in contentment. All those times she obsessed about ear infections, sniffles, and fevers. How she celebrated his first smile, first laugh, first word—Mama—first steps.

      “He’s a cute kid all right,” her father-in-law said. “But you could be in for trouble if he’s still with you when he’s older.”

      Mary sucked in her breath.

      Rose winced. “Now, Harold, dear...”

      “Dad doesn’t mean that the way it sounds.” Wayne put his hand on Mary’s arm. She shrugged it off.

      “I’m just saying,” Harold muttered under his breath.

      Mary leaned forward, her eyes flashing. “You’re just saying what, Dad? You’re just saying what about my son?”

      “Here it is!”

      Jamie rushed over to his grandpa, waving a party invitation in the air. His face glowed. Mary smiled, but inside she was shaking. She had steadfastly refused from the start and always would refuse to consider the possibility that this beautiful child could ever not be her son. She hated the way Wayne worried that if he were taken from them, she’d be devastated and go back to the way she was before. Things had been agonizingly tense between them the two times Jamie’s birth parents came to visit, but fortunately, after Jamie turned one, John and Josephine Buckley disappeared. On Jamie’s second birthday, Mary had announced that from then on his name would be Jamie Buckley Williams, and after that Wayne stopped saying anything to her about being worried and she stopped noticing that he still was.

      “Jamie Buckley Williams.”

      “What? What’s wrong, Mom?”

      Alarmed to realize she’d said Jamie’s name out loud, Mary pulled him into her arms. “Nothing’s wrong, sweetie,” she said. “Absolutely nothing.”

      FOUR

      I stayed in the women’s bathroom until I was able to regain my composure. Then I speculated about why Brion Kacey and Betsy Chambers would refuse to let me read the Mellon case file. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that there was something in the record they were afraid might damage the agency’s reputation. That could have explained why Brion got so upset when I told him about J. B. Harrell’s allegation that a five-year-old foster girl had been hurt in the Mellon home.

      But then why, once Brion and Betsy knew that I was already aware of the incident, did they still refuse to let me read the file? The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if they knew more about Anthony Little Eagle’s death than they’d let on. I pressed my back against the wall and told myself to slow down, be careful not to jump to conclusions.

      Brion’s voice kept echoing in my head. No one...no one will be allowed access to the case file. I thought about how he had given me “permission” (so to speak) to talk to the social worker who had placed Anthony Little Eagle in the Mellon home.

      “Thank you, Brion,” I said into the mirror as if speaking directly to him. “That is exactly what I am going to do. Lynn knows what’s in the case file, and she will tell me what it is since you won’t. And don’t worry about Mr. J. B. Harrell, because I am about to prove him wrong.”

      With my confidence somewhat restored, I headed down the stairs to the second floor to see Lynn Winters. If she had seen anything in the case file about a suspicious injury to a child in the Mellon home, I was sure she never would have placed Anthony Little Eagle there.

      When I walked into the foster care suite, I was surprised to find myself comparing its brightness, from the afternoon sun shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows, to the smoke-filled stench and fog of the courthouse basement up north where I had worked before. The soft voices of social workers talking on their phones was a stark contrast to the cacophony of ringing phones, loud voices, and hiss of steam rushing through the ceiling pipes back then. I hurried between the rows of white cubicles that formed a passageway that led to my office at the end.

      I stopped at Lynn’s cubicle and peered over the waist-high wall, but she wasn’t there. Her workspace, unlike those of my other staff, was