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.And the fourth.“Do you know them?” Charlie pointed at the name and raised an eyebrow.“Kevin and Cindy Sanchez?”“Why would I know them?”Charlie tapped a manicured fingernail two lines lower, on the words “Minor, Oregon.” In her obsession with numbers, Claire hadn’t paid much attention to the names or addresses.When Claire was five, Jean had moved them from Portland to Minor, a rural town twenty miles to the west.Minor had been founded by a miner who had been both unable to spell or to find the gold he was convinced must lie just under the ground.When Claire had lived there, Minor had been a small town surrounded by fields.Now it had become a bedroom community for Portlanders still seeking a bit of acreage.“Sanchez doesn’t sound familiar.But I haven’t lived in Minor for nearly twenty years.Fir Terrace doesn’t ring a bell either.I’ll bet it’s one of those new subdivisions where they name the streets after all the natural beauty that used to be there before they put up the houses.Pine Drive, Cedar Lane, Fir Terrace, and there aren’t any trees left standing at all.” Claire thought of something.“They might be a good possibility, though, especially if the clinic does try to match kids to adoptive parents.Someone with the last name of Sanchez would probably be a good fit for someone whose biological father is named Estrada.”1DRINGChapter TwelveAfter Charlie left for skating practice the next morning, Claire made one phone call and didn’t answer another.The phone call was to Dr.Gregory, to ask him if he’d heard from Ginny.He hadn’t, but he held Claire to her promise, wanting to know all the details of Claire’s visit to the clinic as well as Ginny’s possible disappearance.He persuaded her to meet him at Village Coffee after she met with Lori.Almost as soon as Claire had set the phone down, it rang again.The Caller I.D.box showed that the call was from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Dante.Claire’s hand hovered over the phone for a long moment, before she let it drop to her side.On the third ring, the answering machine picked up.“Claire - it’s me, Dante.What’s up? Hanging the new Impressionists show has been keeping me so busy that I’m practically living here, but I finally realized last night that I haven’t talked to you for over a week - and that’s way too long.Give me a call and let me know what’s happening with you.And tell me how things are with Lori and Zach.I miss you, and,” he lowered his voice, “I love you.So please give me a call as soon as you get in.If you get my voice mail, just press zero-pound to opt out and ask the secretary to track me down.”He sounded sincere.But Claire could not shake the memory of sara’s voice in her ear, sweetly explaining that Dante was in the shower.Claire and Dante were separated by more than just three-thousand miles.They were different in every way, from their family backgrounds to their educations.Was it so unthinkable that he might have turned, even for a moment, to someone more like him?IMAUMBNURNNML###The clouds clustered on the horizon were the color of steel wool, but it wasn’t raining.Yet.There were fewer than a dozen kids in Custer Park.A toddler clambered through a green-plastic tunnel in the infant’s play structure.Three boys about Max’s age ran back and forth between the swings and the battered merry-go-round, engrossed in some private game.Two pre-teen girls balanced on adjacent teeter-totters, arms outspread.A couple of moms sat at a picnic table, one drinking coffee from a paper cup bearing the ubiquitous Starbucks logo, and the other nursing a bundled-up baby under the drape of a pastel afghan.In the grassy bowl that earlier in the year had held soccer players and soon would hold softball games, a young girl and her dad took turns throwing a Frisbee to a black Labrador.As Claire walked up the muddy grass, she saw Lori sitting on a park bench, Zach on her lap.There was a faint growth of dark fuzz on his head, reminding Claire of a baby bird.She took a seat beside Lori on the wooden bench scarred with generations of initials.Max was walking up a blue plastic curlicue slide, his feet slipping on the wet plastic with every step [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]