Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
She takes a seat in my guest chair, and I return to the other side of my desk.
“I appreciate your willingness to meet with me,” she says. “I understand that this must all come as a shock to you given the fact that you weren’t aware of Honor.”
She speaks slowly, choosing her words with careful tenacity. I’m not sure she believed me at first.
Still not sure she does.
But it’s beside the point.
Splaying a manila folder, she hands me a form. A quick scan and I deduce that I’m holding a copy of the child’s birth certificate.
Honor Elizabeth Smith: Born March 5th.
Birth Mother—Larissa Cleary-Schoenbach.
I hand it back. “There’s no birth father listed.”
Jeannie winces. “Correct. She refused to give a name. Said it was complicated, that the father wasn’t aware of the child and wouldn’t want to be in her life if he was.”
I release a hard breath, teeth clenched. Based on the kinds of losers Larissa was spending her time with, something like that wouldn’t be implausible.
“Smith,” I read the girl’s last name aloud.
Jeannie shrugs. “She didn’t go into details, but legally, a person can give their child any name they want. There are over two million Smiths in the United States—the most common surname in the country. I imagine she chose that to avoid giving the child the father’s last name? But of course it’s impossible to know.”
She hands me another sheet of paper—this one bearing a photocopied, black-and-white photo of the child. Grainy, but not grainy enough to deny she shares her mother’s smile—one that takes up half of her face like Larissa’s always did. Her hair is dark. I can’t tell if it’s brown or black. Larissa’s hair was so pale it was translucent in the right light, at least when she was a kid. It darkened a bit as she got older, but it was never this dark.
Appearances aside, she seems like a happy kid, for whatever that’s worth.
“Honor lives here in Worthington Heights,” Jeannie says, “in a temporary placement with a local foster family. She’s been in the system off and on most of her life. There were times Larissa was able to meet the custodial requirements given to her by the courts … but it always seemed like she’d take one step forward, only to fall ten steps back. She wasn’t always able to stay clean, wasn’t able to provide safe, acceptable housing for the child. Was in and out of jail for drug and prostitution-related—”
I lift a hand to silence her. “I’m aware of her rap sheet. The recap is unnecessary.”
Jeannie nods. “Of course. I was just trying to give you an idea of what the first five years of Honor’s life have been like.”
“Why hasn’t she been adopted?”
“It doesn’t work that way. The courts like to keep families together whenever they can and several attempts must be made. Like I said, we had a lot of progress … and then we had a few missteps. Most recently, she’d been taking court-ordered parenting classes, going into the methadone clinic regularly, and had started working at a local plastic factory full-time.”
I’m aware.
In fact, I landed her the job there (unbeknownst to her) seeing as my corporation owns the plant. HR didn’t want to hire her given her unstable work history, but I told them it wasn’t an option. The assembly line position wasn’t anything she could make a career out of, but it was honest work.
I was told she lasted all of four months.
“She was making huge strides,” Jeannie continues, wringing her hands and staring out the window behind me, eyes distant and voice tinged in sadness. I get the impression she cared for Larissa, that Larissa wasn’t just another case file in her desk drawer. “She wanted to be what Honor needed, but unfortunately—”
I lift my hand again.
No need to wallow deeper into this depressing wasteland.
I grab the rest of the case file and turn it to face me, paging through thick stacks of paperwork that mean absolutely nothing.
“I don’t understand why she would leave her child to me. I’m not qualified to raise a child, nor have I ever wanted a child. Not only that, don’t you find it odd she didn’t once mention the existence of this child to me?” I massage my temple, sinking into my seat.
Either way I slice this, none of it makes sense.
If my mother cut her off, she would have no reason to continue keeping the child a secret.
This entire situation is baffling.
Jeannie sucks in a breath, shaking her head. “People do strange things all the time. I can say that from all of my interactions with her over the years, there were times she wasn’t in a clear frame of mind. It’s hard to know what her logic was with all of this.”
“I think it’s safe to say there was none.” I push the file away. “What happens if I say no?”