Look Again

Chapter Thirty-two

"Thanks so much for staying, Con." Ellen closed the front door behind her, feeling a wave of guilt. It was after eleven o'clock, and on TV, a bow-tied weatherman was sticking a yardstick into three inches of snow. "I really do appreciate it."

"S'okay." Connie rose tiredly from the couch, her Sudoku book in hand. "Everything go okay at your meeting?"

"Yes, thanks." Ellen got Connie's coat from the closet and handed it to her. "How's my baby boy?"

"Fine." Connie slipped into her coat. "But it was Crazy Shirt Day at school, and you forgot his shirt. I reminded you, last week. I thought it was in his backpack and just went."

"Oh no." Ellen felt another wave of guilt, which made two in two minutes, a record even for her. "Was he upset?"

"He's three, El."

"I should have remembered."

"No, I should've checked. I will, next time."

"Poor kid." Ellen kicked herself. Will hated to be the one who was different. The one who was adopted. The one with no dad. Neither she nor Will was like the other. "You even reminded me."

"Don't beat yourself up. It's easy to lose track. Crazy Hat Day, Snack Mom, Pajama Day, whatever. I didn't have to deal with that when Mark was little."

Connie slid her puzzle book into her tote bag, picked up her things, then straightened up. "They're working you too hard."

"And I'm working you too hard." Ellen squeezed her shoulder. "Please tell Chuck I'm sorry for keeping you."

"He can get his own meal for a change. It won't kill him." Connie opened the door, letting in a blast of cold, wet air. "Snow's already stopping, isn't it?"

"Yes, but drive safe. Thanks again." Ellen held the door, then closed and locked it behind her. She took off her coat and hung it up, dwelling. She was screwing up left and right lately. Forgetting the crazy shirt. Missing the projects meeting. It had all started with the white card in the mail. She hoped Amy emailed her soon and she could put it all behind her.

Ellen went into the kitchen and brewed herself a fresh mug of coffee, pushing Amy to the back of her mind. She had a story to write and she was starved. She scarfed a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats over the sink, leaving her leftover milk to Oreo Figaro, who leapt onto the counter, purring deeply as he lapped it up. When he was finished, he looked up from the bowl, blinking his yellow-green eyes in a silent request for more. The tiniest droplet of milk clung to his chin.

"We have to get to work," Ellen said, taking back the bowl.

Up in her home office, she began as she did with any story. There were no shortcuts, at least none that worked. She built her stories from the bottom up, and her first step was always transcribing her notes. If she needed to quote directly, she'd go to the tapes. Then, usually, if she'd had enough caffeine, her brain would lurch into action and an angle for the story would suggest itself. She took a sip of hot coffee, glanced at the notes beside her, and started with the interview of Lateef's mother, typing:

Pies "too ugly" to serve. She wants it in the paper, so kids are not a number "like it's Powerball."

Ellen kept going, trying to remember the mood of the interview and how she felt sitting in Laticia's kitchen, but her thoughts strayed back to Cheryl's house and the picture of Amy and the man on the beach.

"Ain't nothin' gonna change here, and this is America."

Ellen flipped the page of her notebook and kept transcribing, but it was only mechanical. She'd learned a lot about Will in one day. She'd met his mother, grandmother, and aunt. She might have seen what his father looked like. She tried to keep typing but her fingers slowed and thoughts of the Martin family intruded. She found herself wondering if Cheryl had emailed her a copy of the photo of Amy and the man on the beach.

She minimized her Word file and opened up Outlook Express. Incoming emails piled onto the screen, and she ignored the one from Sarah with the attachment and subject line: FYI, I EMAILED MARCELO MY PIECE. Suddenly an email came on the screen from twinzmom373@gmail.com.

Ellen clicked it open. It was Cheryl's. The message read, Nice meeting you, and there was an attachment. She opened the attachment, and the photo of Amy and the man on the beach popped onto the screen. Though she'd seen it before, she couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that Amy was Will's mother and the man on the beach his father, glowing on her computer screen. She looked over her shoulder in case Will had gotten out of bed, but there was nothing behind her except Oreo Figaro, his front legs stretched on the rug like Superman in flight.

She squinted at the picture. It was brighter online, but still blurry and the images too distant. She knew how to rectify that. She saved the photo to My Pictures and opened Photoshop, then uploaded the photo, drew a box around Amy's face, and clicked Zoom. The image exploded into pixels, so she telescoped it down a little, then examined Amy's features with care. The shape of her eyes didn't look much like Will's, though they were blue, but her nose was longer than Will's and too wide.

Not everybody looks like their mom.

Ellen zoomed out to the original photo, outlined the man's face with the mouse, then clicked. Her heart beat a little faster. The man did look a little familiar, and his smile was like Will's, with that downturn on the right. She sipped some coffee and clicked Zoom again, enlarging his face to fill the screen. She'd hoped the blur would let her sense the general configuration of his face, but it didn't. She set down her coffee, almost spilling it on her notes, so she moved the notebook out of the way. Sticking out from underneath was the white card with the photo of Timothy Braverman.

Hmmm.

She slid out the white card and looked at the age-progressed version of Timothy, then set the card down, went back into My Pictures, and found Will's last school picture. She enlarged it and set it up on the screen next to the photo of the man on the beach. Then she compared the two photos, the most recent of Will with the man on the beach, taking a mental inventory:

Will, eyes blue and wide-set; Beach Man, eyes close together and blue Will, nose, little and turned up; Beach Man, long and skinny Will, blond hair; Beach Man, light brown hair Will, round face; Beach Man, long, oval face Will, normal chin; Beach Man, pointed chin Similarities, blue eyes, lopsided smile

Ellen reviewed the list, then leaned back and eyeballed the photos from a distance. She wasn't able to reach a conclusion, as much as she wanted to. Beach Man could be Will's father, or maybe he was someone Amy was dating around the same time, or a random guy with a beer. Or maybe Will didn't look that much like either of his parents. He looked like Cheryl, and that counted for something.

Ellen went back online. She clicked through to the Braverman family's website, then captured the age-progressed photo of Timothy and saved a copy to My Pictures. She was going to put it on the screen next to Will's and Beach Man's, then compare all three of them when something else on the Braverman family website caught her eye.

The composite drawing of the carjacker.

On impulse, Ellen captured the composite and saved a copy to My Pictures, then uploaded it and placed it next to recent Will, age-progressed Timothy, and Beach Man, all four images in a line. She blinked, and her heart beat a little faster. She captured the composite drawing and the photo of Beach Man, then placed them side by side on their own page. The photos were different sizes, so she outlined the composite drawing and clicked Zoom to enlarge it to the approximate size of Beach Man, and clicked.

She froze. The composite drawing of the carjacker looked like Beach Man. She double-checked, and there was no doubt that they looked alike.

"Oh my God," she said aloud, and Oreo Figaro raised his chin, his eyes angled slits disappearing into the blackness of his fur.

Ellen looked back at the screen, getting a grip. It was impossible to compare a black-and-white pencil drawing with a color photo of a flesh-and-blood man. She flashed on Will's tracing of a horse from the other day, and it gave her an idea. She clicked Print, and her cheap plastic printer chugged to life. Then she got up and hurried downstairs, rummaged through the toy box, and ran back up with a roll of tracing paper.

The printer had spit out a copy of the composite drawing, and she took a black Sharpie and went over the lines of the carjacker's features, blackening them so they'd be darker and thicker. Then she took the piece of tracing paper and placed it on top of the composite drawing, tracing the image onto the crinkly transparent paper, ignoring the thumping in her chest. She set the traced composite aside, slid the copy of the Beach Man photo from the printer tray, then moved her computer keyboard to the side and set the printed photo on the desk.

Then she stopped.

She wanted to know and she didn't want to know, both at once.

"Get over it," she said under her breath, and she took the traced composite of the carjacker and placed it over Beach Man's face.

It was an exact match.

Ellen felt her gorge rising, and she jumped up and bolted for the bathroom.