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‘How long will this visit last?’

‘Wendy said about an hour, unless River makes it clear he’s done, and then it would be best to leave We don’t want to make him uncomfortable’

When I tell Reid what I learned fro River’s htmares, and some of the details about his adoptive parents, he erfor several o, River’s adoptive father died in a tragic car accident I vaguely recall him, out of all the prospective adoptive parents Kathryn and I sifted through that summer Blond, handsome, mid-thirties Financially sound What I re he wrote at the end of his prospective adoptive parent state, wonderful father topoint for my choice of them over another couple

His father is deceased, hisin a retireed fro to consider caring for River, whorandchild Soon after her husband’s death, she’d sunk into an addiction she was unwilling or unable to abandon, even though ither child – a little boy who had no one else to depend on in the world

Except for me

‘What are we supposed to say to a kid who doesn’t talk?’ Reid asks, finally, all hints of his earlier levity gone

‘He can understand e say And I brought the Life Book – it’s on the seat behind you’

He turns to snatch the scrapbook we started when he was here earlier in the week, leafing through the pages as I spot the exit up ahead ‘This is great, Brooke,’ he murmurs

‘When I was six or so, Kathryn made me a scrapbook ofbooks of their baby photos and stories about their first few years of life’

‘Your lance at him like Really? ‘Guess that’s nota scrapbook? Definitely not ‘Kathryn tolda few photos the next time I came over Over the next feeeks, I pocketed snapshots of myself that I found in drawers or boxes at hoh I was basically an only child Kathryn bought a handlittery pink adhesive letters on the front that spelled out Brooke’s Book, and co in years I’d forgotten about it until just now

‘Do you still have it? My mom’s definitely not crafty, but she kept photo albums of my childhood Up until I was ten, anyway’

I bite oes nu it hoes out and tore up all the pictures’

‘Holy shit, Brooke’ He stares at reat role model for a mom, huh?’

His hand clenches into a fist on the console between us ‘Your role ht?’

I did know that, soed it consciously

‘Yeah You’re right’

I turn down a street of analogous one-storey ho front yard, a driveway on the right-hand side and a cyclone fence A few pecan trees and crepe myrtles dot the landscape here and there, but this flat stretch of acreage was probably reclaimed farmland when the subdivision was built, so there were no old oaks, like those surrounding Kathryn and Glenn’s place

‘This is it,’ I whisper, spotting the mailbox house nu heart motif My heart thu on row cold, though it’s a beautiful late-winter day, the teree or two of LA