Chapter 5: What Patrice Saw
We met the next morning at a diner twenty minutes outside of town.
Patrice had chosen it, and I understood why the moment I saw her — she sat with her back to the wall, facing the door, her coffee already in front of her but untouched.
She was in her late forties, with tired eyes and a handbag held tight in her lap even after she sat down.
I slid into the seat across from her.
"Thank you for calling me."
"I almost didn't." She looked at her coffee.
"I almost didn't a hundred times."
"Tell me what you know."
She wrapped both hands around the mug.
"About three years ago, a woman came into our office.
She was looking for her daughter.
The little girl had been placed in temporary foster care while the mother was in a crisis situation, and the mother said she'd been told she couldn't get her back without going through a formal reunification process.
She had completed every requirement.
Parenting classes.
Stable housing.
Employment verification.
Everything they asked."
"Claire," I said.
Patrice looked up.
"You know her name."
"I know her.
Or I did, a long time ago."
Patrice nodded slowly.
"She came in with a folder full of paperwork.
She had done everything right.
And Donna turned her away."
"On what grounds?"
"She told Claire that the reunification window had closed.
That Lily had already been matched with a prospective adoptive family and that the process was too far along to reverse." Patrice paused.
"That was a lie.
No family had been matched yet.
Lily was still in general foster placement."
"Why would Donna lie about that?"
Patrice looked at the door.
Then back at me.
"Because someone asked her to," she said.
"Someone who didn't want Claire to get that little girl back."
My coffee sat in front of me, untouched.
"Who?"
"I don't know the full story.
What I know is what I saw.
Claire left that day in tears.
Two weeks later, I was asked by Donna to pull Lily's file and remove a section of intake documents before the file was transferred to an adoption attorney's office.
I asked why.
Donna said it was a routine administrative correction.
I said the documents didn't look like corrections to me — they looked like original intake records."
"What did she say?"
"She said if I wanted to keep my job, I would do what I was told." Patrice's jaw tightened.
"I was two years from my pension.
I had a sick mother and a daughter in college.
So I did it.
And I have hated myself for it every single day since."
I looked at her.
"Do you still have copies of what you removed?"
Her handbag moved in her lap.
"Patrice," I said quietly.
"Whatever is in that bag — whatever you've been carrying around for two years — I need you to know that you are not too late.
Claire has been searching for her daughter this whole time.
And Lily is three years old and doesn't know her mother looked for her."
Patrice's eyes filled.
She blinked hard.
Then she reached into her handbag and placed a brown envelope on the table between us.
"Everything is in there," she said.
"Including Donna's email to the person who gave the order."
My hand moved to the envelope.
"Who gave the order?" I asked.
Patrice looked at me steadily.
"Lily's father's family.
May you like
They didn't want Claire raising that child.
And they had money enough to make sure she couldn't."
