Chapter 12: Margery

I drove back across the bay without remembering the road.

I parked behind Maisie's school at ten to twelve.

The kitchen door was propped open for a delivery.

Inside, a row of women in navy aprons were setting trays along a steel counter.

She was at the far end, ladling soup, and she looked up as I came through the door.

I watched her see me.

She put the ladle down.

She said something to the woman beside her, wiped her hands, and walked around the counter without hurrying.

"Not here," she said. "There's a storeroom."

It was a narrow room full of flour bags and cans.

She shut the door and stood with her back against it.

"You came faster than I thought you would."

"You know who I am."

"I knew on the beach."

Her voice was low and even, and her fingers were pressed hard against the front of her apron.

"I wasn't sure of it until I read the sign-in sheet at the front office. Cedric Marsden. I told myself Marsden is a common name."

"Doane isn't," I said.

She went very still.

"Who told you that?"

"Regina found a file in my mother's closet. It has a decree. It says my birth mother was Margery Doane."

"Yes," she said. "That's me."

I had been practicing what to say for an hour in the car.

I could not remember one word of it.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know what to call you."

"Margery will do."

Her smile broke, and she covered it with the back of her hand.

"I'll call you Margery. If you want to be called anything else, I'd..."

She stopped and tried again.

"I can't say what I want to be called. I haven't earned any name."

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