7 THAT EVENING, SHE CALLED ME A THIEF—HER FIANCÉ'S SON CALLED ME MOMMY

"You're stealing from this family."

Camille Laurent kicked my handbag down the marble stairs before I could explain why I was carrying a photograph of the boy I cared for.

The bag struck the third step, flipped, and split open at the bottom. My wallet slid beneath a brass planter. A spare hair tie landed beside one of Leo's socks. Then a white envelope skated across the polished floor, faceup, with my name printed beside the words MATERNITY COMPARISON.

I stopped breathing.

Chicago shimmered beyond the penthouse windows, forty-two stories below. Inside, the elevator lobby smelled of lemon polish and Camille's expensive perfume. She wore a cream dress that never seemed to wrinkle. I wore the gray uniform she had chosen for me, my curls tied back so tightly they hurt.

"I told you to empty that bag," she said.

"You told me to leave by six. It's five forty."

"Don't lecture me about the time."

I knelt to gather the scattered things. I'd taken no money, no jewelry, nothing that belonged to anyone else. But the one object I had tried hardest to conceal was lying in plain sight.

Six-year-old Leo came running out of the hallway in his blue sweater, clutching the little red toy car he took everywhere.

"Don't touch Mommy's bag!" he cried.

The word stopped both women for different reasons.

Camille's mouth tightened. "You see what she's teaching him?"

The elevator opened behind us.

Vincent Bellini stepped out in a tailored charcoal suit, dark hair damp from the rain. He was forty-two, tall enough to make most rooms seem smaller. He saw Leo crying, Camille standing over me, and the contents of my handbag on the steps.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I found evidence she was stealing," Camille said.

"No," I answered. "You found a reason to go through my things."

Vincent didn't look at either of us. His attention had gone to the envelope. He bent, lifted it, and ran his thumb across the label.

MAYA REYES. LEO BELLINI. BIOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIP: MATERNAL.

He unfolded the page. I could see him reading the conclusion twice, searching for the mistake that would restore the world he understood.

"Why does this say my son?" he asked.

I had imagined telling him in a hundred different ways. None involved a marble floor, an audience, or his fiancée's heel resting on my work badge.

"Because I paid to have his DNA compared with mine," I said. "Because I needed to know whether the child I was told had died was alive."

Camille made a sharp sound. "That's disgusting. She took a sample from a little boy without permission."

"Yes," I said, because that part was true and couldn't be made decent by grief. "I did something I should have asked a court to authorize."

Vincent's expression changed. Not to belief. Not yet. To the expression of a man who had realized that disbelief was no longer enough.

Leo wrapped both arms around his leg.

"Don't make Mommy go."

He whispered it so quietly I almost missed the words.

I reached toward Leo and stopped myself. Vincent's eyes were on me, cold with hurt.

"You told him to call you that?"

"Never. He started saying it when he was sick. I told him he could call me Maya."

"Camille," Vincent said, "take Leo inside."

"Vincent, that woman—"

"Now."

Leo held out his red car to me, a desperate offering. I touched its chipped roof with one finger.

"I'll see you soon, buddy," I said, though I had no right to promise it.

Camille pulled him toward the apartment. He resisted until Vincent nodded. The door clicked shut on the sound of his crying.

Then Vincent showed me the report.

"The laboratory says this is an informational comparison. It isn't a legal determination."

"I know."

"Where did you get his sample?"

"From a toothbrush I should never have taken."

"And why did you come to work in my home?"

Here was the question I'd spent ten months avoiding.

"Because six years ago, at St. Agnes Medical Center, I gave birth to a baby boy. Your mother told me he had died. Three days later, someone used my name to sign away his custody."

Vincent stared at me. His hand, holding the report, went absolutely still.

"My mother," he said, "told me you abandoned him."

I felt the floor tilt beneath my knees.

Somewhere beyond the locked apartment door, Leo was calling my name.

"Then somebody lied to both of us," I said.