Chapter 21: The Lab

Adelaide was already in the lobby of the Norwalk lab when we walked in.

She stood by the reception desk in her camel coat, with Poppy's school bag over one arm.

Beside her stood the family lawyer in his good overcoat, and a uniformed police officer with a clipboard.

Silvan's hand closed on my elbow.

"Officer," Adelaide said, turning, with the sweet, tired look she used on donors.

"That is my granddaughter. And that is the woman the court ordered to stay five hundred feet from her."

The officer looked at Poppy, who was holding Rhett's hand and my sleeve at once.

"Ma'am," he said to me. "Are you Rochelle Copley?"

"Yes."

"There's an order against you."

"There is a line in it," Rhett said, and held out the gas receipt.

His hand shook, but he held it out.

The officer read the back of it.

He turned over the pages the lawyer gave him, found the second page, read the small type, and read the receipt again.

"Mr. Sanborn, are you the father of the child?"

"Yes."

"And you're consenting."

"I am."

"Rhett," Adelaide said.

"Mother."

"It's a stunt, officer. He's not himself. My son has been under enormous strain."

"Mrs. Sanborn," the officer said, rather tiredly, "I can't hold a father's child from the father."

The lawyer started to talk, and the officer held up one hand.

"It's a family matter," he said. "If you have a custody issue, take it to court."

He nodded to Rhett, and he nodded to me, and he went back out through the glass doors.

Adelaide watched him go.

She turned to her son, and the sweetness was gone from her face.

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