The Richest Woman in Town Claimed Me as Her Lost Daughter on Stage, Then I Read the Date on Her Lab Report novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: A Bow on a Buick

Barbara calls it a clerical delay and tries to give Hallie a car in front of the library board; Hallie refuses, and Lindsey admits she brought the worksheet home that started it.

"A clerical delay," Barbara said.

She said it to the microphone, to the room and to me, in exactly the same warm voice.

"The lab issued its first certification a long time ago, and confirmed the match this week."

"Hallie is just being careful, which is one of the things I love about her."

Somebody in the pancake line laughed from sheer relief.

The photographer lowered his camera and raised it again.

I put the stapled pages into Barbara's hand and held on to the seal for one second longer than I had to.

"Mrs. Chalmers, I'd like my mother to be asked first," I said.

"Of course, sweetheart. Of course."

Behind her, Ray Chalmers had finally closed his mouth.

"Barbara," he said, low, "is that true? About the lab?"

"Not here, Ray."

My mother was already walking.

She had taken off her hairnet and folded it into her apron pocket.

Four hundred people stepped aside to let her through.

Tom had her coat off the hook by the kitchen door before she got there.

He held it open without a word, and she put her arms in.

"Mrs. Weber," he said.

"Thank you, Tom."

I came down the stage steps so fast I nearly lost a shoe.

The editor of the Times got in front of me with his notebook out.

"Hallie, a quote? How does it feel?"

"The date is on the page," I said, and went around him.

In the parking lot my mother started to laugh.

She leaned on the fender of my Corolla in her apron and laughed.

She laughed until she had to wipe her eyes with the heel of her hand.

"A clerical delay," she wheezed. "Eleven years of clerical delay."

"Mom."

"I'm not upset, baby. I'm laughing. It's different."

It is different, with her.

When my mother is really angry she gets very cheerful, and I have learned to be afraid of it.

"Let's go home," she said, "and I'll make eggs on my own stove, since I'm apparently not good enough for theirs."

On Monday morning I pulled into the library lot at 8:40 and found a white Buick with a red bow on it.

It was parked across two spaces, right in front of the doors, and it was the size of a small boat.

Barbara stood beside it in her cream coat with three members of the Friends of the Library board.

The Times photographer stood with them.

"There she is," Barbara said, and she opened her arms.

I kept my keys in my hand.

"A little welcome gift," she said. "Your Corolla has a hundred and ninety thousand miles on it, sweetheart. I won't have you stranded."

The woman in the quilted vest sighed at the size of the bow.

The man beside her said, "Isn't that something."

Behind the glass doors, the director had both hands over her mouth.

Barbara held out the key fob, and it swung from her finger on a ribbon.

"Take it, Hallie. Please. You're embarrassing yourself in front of the board."

I looked at the bow.

I looked at the three board members, who were all trying to look like they'd come for a different reason.

"Mrs. Chalmers, did you tell them the date on the report?" I said.

The vest woman's smile slipped.

"Because I'd like them to know it before the picture," I said. "It's October ninth, 2015."

"Hallie," said Barbara, very quietly.

"I'm not taking a car from a woman who won't tell me what year she found out."

I put my keys back in my bag.

"I have a hold shelf to pull," I said. "Good morning."

The doors hissed open for me, and I did not look back.

By the end of the day the Buick was still sitting there with its bow on.

Every patron who came in had asked me about it.

At 5:30 I walked out to the lot, and a woman in a gray coat was leaning on my Corolla.

It was Lindsey Chalmers.

Up close she looked like she hadn't slept since Friday.

She had her mother's posture and somebody else's chin, and for the first time I noticed that I'd seen that chin before.

"Hi," she said. "I'm not here for Barbara. She doesn't know I'm here."

"Okay."

"I'm sorry," Lindsey said. "I know that doesn't mean anything. I'm sorry I'm not sorry enough."

"That's a strange thing to say."

"It's the only true one I have." She pulled her sleeves down over her hands. "Can I tell you how it started?"

I should have said no.

I should have gone home to my mother's eggs.

"I was sixteen," Lindsey said. "I brought the worksheet home."

A bus went by on Third Street.

"Biology. We typed our blood, and mine was impossible for both of my parents. I showed my mother at the kitchen table, and I was proud of it, like a funny trick."

"And she ran the test the same week," I said.

Lindsey nodded.

"Then she told me it was a lab error," she said. "I let her tell me that, Hallie. I've let her tell me that for eleven years."

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