"Who sent the note?" I asked.
She hesitated. "A woman named Diane."
My father, who had insisted on coming, went still. "Diane was the worker at the burial."
Same scar under the chin.
That was when I hired an attorney.
He moved fast. Two days later, he got us access to redacted dependency records through the county office. Ben and I sat in a cold room turning pages while Lily waited outside with my father and a social worker.
We found it.
Five years earlier, a child named Mara had been recorded as deceased during a winter illness outbreak at a failing children's home.
Three months later, a child named Lily appeared in another county under an older incomplete file that had been reopened and updated.
Our attorney tracked Diane to a small apartment over a laundromat.
Same birth year.
Same scar under the chin.
Same intake photo.
When Lily was finally allowed inside to see the page, she stared at it and whispered, "That's me."
Our attorney tracked Diane to a small apartment over a laundromat.
I still don't know if bringing Lily there was the right choice. I only know that after so many adults had decided things over her head, I could not stand the idea of excluding her again.
"She should have been told the truth years ago."
When Diane opened the door and saw Lily, her face fell apart.
She said, "You shouldn't be here."
Ben answered, "She should have been told the truth years ago."
Inside, Diane tried to dodge for maybe a minute. Then she sat down and started crying.
Years earlier, Mara had been living in a badly run children's home during a winter outbreak. Another girl around the same age died. Her records were a mess. In the confusion, Mara's file was wrongly closed as though she had died too.
"You let a living child stay dead on paper?"
I said, "So you corrected it."
Diane shook her head. "No."
