Chapter 9 - ELAINE FOSTER
Elaine did not meet Daniel immediately.
She asked for three things first.
No media.
No Margaret.
No Sophie.
Daniel agreed to all three.
They met in a mediator's office eleven days later.
Elaine Foster was fifty-nine.
Shorter than Daniel expected.
Gray beginning at the temples.
Hands that moved constantly when she was nervous.
Daniel knew her nose.
His nose.
That nearly undid him before either spoke.
Elaine looked at him.
Then said:
“You look like Richard when you're trying not to cry.”
Daniel laughed once.
Badly.
“So he was my father.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
“Did you love him?”
Elaine looked away.
“For a while.”
“Did he love you?”
“Sometimes.”
Better answer.
Then Daniel asked the question he had carried for two weeks.
“Did you give me away?”
Elaine flinched.
“Yes.”
Not:
They stole you.
Not:
I had no choice.
She continued.
“I signed.”
“Why?”
“I was twenty-four. My parents had stopped speaking to me. Richard was married. I had no health insurance after leaving Carter Development.”
“Did he fire you?”
“No.”
“I quit.”
“Why?”
“Everybody knew.”
She looked at her hands.
Richard paid her medical expenses.
Then offered monthly support.
Margaret proposed adoption.
Elaine initially refused.
Then Daniel developed respiratory problems at two months old and spent nine days hospitalized.
Margaret was there constantly.
Richard was there when work allowed.
Elaine was exhausted, broke, terrified.
She agreed to a temporary guardianship.
Not adoption.
Months later, Richard and Margaret asked again.
Elaine agreed only after the correspondence promise was written.
“And money.”
Daniel said.
Elaine looked up.
“Yes.”
There.
Richard paid Elaine $55,000 after the adoption.
A large amount then.
Not written as payment for Daniel.
Settlement of employment claims, medical bills, relocation support, confidentiality regarding Richard's affair.
Still connected.
“Did money change your decision?”
“Yes.”
Daniel appreciated that she did not insult him with denial.
“I could start over.”
“Did you?”
“For a while.”
Elaine moved to Raleigh.
Worked in accounting.
Married.
Had another child.
Divorced.
Built a life.
She received annual photographs of Daniel until he was ten.
Then Richard began sending them less often.
At eighteen, she wrote.
No response.
At nineteen.
Again.
Then Margaret finally called her.
“What did she say?”
Elaine stared through the office window.
“She said you knew.”
Daniel went still.
“She told me you had been told and didn't want contact.”
Daniel's jaw tightened.
“Did you believe her?”
“I wanted to.”
“Why?”
“Because if you didn't want me, I could stop waiting without feeling like a coward.”
There.
Elaine also made herself comfortable inside the lie.
Then:
“Did she ask you to stop writing?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“For three years.”
“Then?”
“I started again.”
Daniel looked down.
The story was worse than abandonment.
Better than kidnapping.
Two adults had made an agreement.
Then three adults spent years bending it until Daniel was the only person who did not know it existed.
Before leaving, Elaine reached into her handbag.
One old photograph.
Daniel at four.
Margaret holding him at a playground.
Elaine said:
“She sent me that one.”
Daniel looked up.
“Mom did?”
“Yes.”
“She wasn't always trying to erase me.”
That mattered.
Elaine continued.
“For years she kept the promise better than Richard did.”
Daniel stared at the photograph.
Margaret's story was getting harder to flatten.
Then Elaine said:
“Something changed after you turned sixteen.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
Annual photographs stopped.
Letters stopped being acknowledged.
Margaret's tone changed.
And around the same time—
Richard asked Elaine to sign a second confidentiality agreement.
She refused.
Why?
It mentioned Daniel's parentage.
But not only Margaret.
There was a clause concerning:
Any uncertainty regarding paternal biological identification.
Daniel slowly looked up.
“Uncertainty?”
Elaine's face changed.
“I thought it was lawyer language.”
“Was Richard my biological father?”
Elaine answered:
“Yes.”
May you like
Daniel heard certainty.
He was no longer sure certainty was enough.
