The Wrong Girl

45

“Book, Mama! Phillip get!” Phillip leaped from Jane’s lap and plowed himself into a pile of shiny picture books stacked on the floor by the end table. He grabbed a glossy turquoise-and-red cover and held it up, triumphant. “Dis one, Mama!”

Jane recognized The Cat in the Hat.

“Did he say…?” Jane looked at Bethany, wondering if she’d heard properly. “… Mama? Did he mean me? Or does he call everyone-oof.”

Phillip clambered back onto her lap and plastered his spine against Jane’s chest, awkwardly propping the too-big book on his outstretched legs. His feet barely reached beyond Jane’s knees, and the plaid laces of one of his rubber-soled shoes had come untied.

Bethany crossed her arms in front of her, watching the two of them on the couch. “I’m sorry, Jane. Yes, he did say ‘Mama.’ And no, I must tell you he’s never said that word, not in the three days he’s been with me. He has said-well, some other things. But I’m trying to assess what, if anything, he means. Possibly you look like his birth mother? Or wear her perfume? You don’t look like Brianna Tillson. We may never know.”

“Hey, Phillip.” Jane cuddled him closer. Poor thing. “Sure, we can read this. Okay?” She looked up as the boy pawed through the pages. “Bethany? You were saying?”

“Yes. Well. There is some discussion in the literature,” Bethany, drawing out her words, seemed to be remembering, “that children who are too young to properly imprint, or who have been removed from their biological mother and put into other arrangements for care at what might be a vulnerable time in their emotional development, might possibly fail to adapt, and subsequently create the belief system that whatever woman is presented as a caregiver is, therefore, ‘mother.’ That the word represents more of a role, you see, rather than terminology signifying a specific, singular person. We call it role conflation.”

“Mama, read book. Mama! Read book!” Phillip made himself heavy in her lap. Wiggling his insistence.

It was kind of adorable, really. Reassuring. That this tiny boy would see Jane as a mother. Oh, she’d felt the stirrings. Of course. Of the possibility that someday, with someone, there’d be a little person who was half her and half-whoever. Her own mother had always told her nothing was comparable to motherhood. But that was for someday. Here, Jane understood the sad reality. Probably the reason Phillip called her “mama” was that his own mother was dead.

Well, his foster mother, at least. Brianna Tillson. “Is Phillip’s real mother alive?”

“Can’t discuss that.” Bethany stopped her, palms up. “Jane, he’s had a tough time. I’ve been hoping upon hope-not very professionally said, I know-that he won’t remember anything about what happened to him.”

“Has he shown any signs of remembering?” She turned to the next page, saw a fishbowl balanced on a broomstick and a grinning cat. “It was too cold to go out, it was too wet to play,” she read, pointing to each word as she spoke it.

Then she had another thought. “Did the police come to interview Phillip? Did he tell them anything?”

Bethany burst out laughing, then put a palm over her mouth. “This has quickly deteriorated, Jane, into a conversation far beyond the boundaries of-”

“Mama? Where baby?” The tiny voice came from Jane’s lap. Phillip had pushed the book onto the floor and wrenched his body around to face her. Wide-eyed and entreating, the little boy was clearly waiting for an answer.

Jane frowned at Bethany, confused. “What baby? Does he mean Phoebe?”

“Phoebe sleep. Where baby?” Phillip’s voice had the edge of a whine.

“That’s right, she’s taking a nap, honey,” Jane said, smoothing his hair. “It’s okay. Here, we can read again until she wakes up. Bethany? You were saying about the police?”

Bethany leaned down, handed her the book. “You know I can’t-Oh. Now who is that?”

The doorbell rang, again, a cheery bing-bong.

“Excuse me.” Bethany went to the front door, peered through the peephole. Then turned to Jane, one hand to her mouth. “I don’t know quite how to handle this. It’s the police. That detective, Jake Brogan. And you-well, you shouldn’t be here.”