Chapter 4

"Are you gonna talk to that guy Limpert again today?" Nick asked at the breakfast table.

"I plan to," Jarrod said, "but I don't know that you should get your hopes up."

That was all there was to that. Jarrod shared a look with Heath, a look that asked Heath to keep an eye on Nick all day, and a look that Heath gave back saying he would.

Jarrod went into town and to his office, wondering how he was going to handle this day. Limpert was due to come by this morning. He was certain Limpert wouldn't have anything new to say. Jarrod wasn't sure how he was going to deal with that. He found himself wishing the Limperts would just leave town and disappear. Maybe Belinda had the right idea all along.

But it wasn't Limpert who came to see him about half an hour after he got into the office. It was Belinda.

To say Jarrod was surprised was putting it mildly. Belinda appeared at the door, asking, "May I see you?"

Jarrod said, "Of course," let her in, and closed the door behind her.

She came in, but stood there in the room just inside the door, looking all around.

She looked like she was searching for hidden traps. She looked so uncomfortable that Jarrod tried a smile. "Bee, why don't you just tell me what's troubling you and we'll see what we can do about it? I know something is, or you wouldn't be here – not just in my office. In Stockton. Come, sit down."

Belinda looked at him. "You're not going to want me to stay once you hear what I have to say."

"Why don't we see about that?" Jarrod said, took her arm, and led her to the chair in front of his desk. Instead of sitting in his own chair, he sat on the corner of his desk, trying to look more casual and relaxed. "I'm not here to judge, Belinda. I'm here to listen. Nick wants to see you, but you won't see him, and I get the feeling the reason is deeper than you've let on so far."

She still hesitated.

Jarrod said, "I was actually expecting your husband this morning, not you. Does he know you're here?"

"Yes," she said. "We had a long talk early this morning."

"About what you think I won't like when I hear it?"

Belinda nodded. "About why I left Nick seven years ago."

"Why don't you just say it?" Jarrod said, trying to sound comforting.

Belinda swallowed, and finally said, "I left seven years ago because I was going to have a baby."

Jarrod's stomach dropped out of him. He straightened. He took it in, all of it, all of the ramifications. He said, "Nick's baby."

"Yes," Belinda said.

Jarrod said, "You never told him."

Belinda said, "No."

Jarrod's head started to spin. There didn't seem to be any child in the Limpert family. "What happened to the baby?" Jarrod asked.

"I left him," Belinda said. "I went to San Francisco when I left here. He was born there. As soon as he was born, I left him with the Sisters of Mercy."

Jarrod didn't think his heart could sink any further, but it did. Jarrod knew the convent well. He had worked with the church for years, and he knew – and was involved with – how it handled foundlings. The convent was cloistered but had a small hole in the wall, a dropbox of sorts, specifically for women to leave their unwanted babies anonymously. The sisters there would have the babies taken to a home run by other nuns for unwed mothers, a home Jarrod had worked with and even supported financially for years. At the home, they would see the foundling was adopted by a decent Catholic family. They were good at it.

They were also good and successful in ensuring total anonymity. The sisters in the cloister and in the home for unwed mothers kept no records beyond the date a baby was taken in and the date it went out, not which baby went with which set of parents. The adoptive parents would take the child, legally adopt it, and all adoption records would be permanently sealed. Jarrod himself helped ensure that process.

Jarrod himself had seen to it more than once that the sealed records were never unsealed either. "Dear God," he said out loud but only thought the rest. He may have unknowingly ensured that Nick would never see his son or even know what happened to him. Everything he had worked for over the years, to see that unwanted children found safe, secure homes where they were wanted – all of that was coming back to slap his brother in the face.

Belinda said, "I came to Stockton because I just couldn't live with this anymore, but once I got here, I couldn't bring myself to see Nick and explain it."

Jarrod worked hard to stay seated where he was. Belinda had been right. He didn't want to hear what she had just said, but he couldn't unhear it. What to do with it was ripping him apart. "Does your husband know all this?"

"He does now," Belinda said. "I told him early this morning. I had never told him before. He's upset but – I can't live with this guilt anymore, even if it costs me my marriage."

Jarrod really didn't want that to happen, but he understood it was not within his power to keep it from happening. But something was in his power. This was a secret he couldn't keep, and wouldn't. "Nick has to know too," Jarrod ended up saying.

"I know," Belinda said. "It's why I came here. For years I've just wondered and ached and I know I can never find my son, but I can't keep this from Nick anymore. It's killing me. But Jarrod, you know people, you have connections – maybe you - ?"

Jarrod quickly shook his head. "Can I find out what happened to your son? Unlikely. Belinda, I've been working with that convent for more than seven years. I never handle the adoptions themselves, but I know how they handle things and I know that once a child is adopted, the court records are sealed and there's no opening them. More than once I've worked with the courts to make sure they don't get opened."

"Why not?"

"Can you imagine the disruption to a child and a family if a woman changed her mind and wanted her baby back? If a father tried to find a child? Belinda, it's the welfare of the child that the Church and the courts are concerned with. A baby can't be treated like a piece of property you give up and then reclaim."

Belinda turned her head and started to cry. "To this day, I regret I didn't just stay here and marry Nick, but I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Afraid he'd turn me out once he found out I was with child," she confessed.

"So you left instead."

"I didn't know what else to do. For once in my life, I didn't know what to do. I've regretted it ever since I put my son in that hole in the wall at the convent. I did the wrong thing and I can't undo it."

"No, we can't," Jarrod said.

"I don't know how to tell Nick."

Oh, God, Nick, Jarrod thought. He finally got up and paced. He had to think. He had to balance all the crazy facts and interests. He had to confront that this situation was smacking him in the face personally, because he had struggled for years to help support a system that was now going to rip the heart out of his younger brother.

And he was going to have to let it.

But there was Belinda and her marriage, too. "Are you sure you and your husband can work through this?"

"No," Belinda said honestly. "I know I'm going to try, but how this is going to settle in with him, I don't know. Jarrod, I love my husband. I don't want my marriage to end."

"Then you'd better pay your first attention to it, and not to Nick," Jarrod said. "With or without your permission, I have to tell Nick what you've told me."

She started to panic.

"And I will do everything I can to temper his wrath," Jarrod quickly said, "but he's going to have it."

"Jarrod, I'm so sorry."

"Did you leave anything with the baby by which he could be identified?" Jarrod asked.

"No," Belinda said. "I just wrapped him in a blanket and put him in the hatch."

"Do you know what the date was when you did that?"

"I don't know, other than it was sometime in mid-June, six years ago."

"You're sure you don't remember?"

She nodded. "I'm sure. I was just about senseless at the time. All I knew was I had a baby I didn't want and I had to get rid of it."

"Well, that alone closes the door," Jarrod said, not liking the way she put things but not arguing over it either. "If you don't have a date, we can't even identify which baby was yours. There's nothing I could do even if I was willing to try."

"Babies can't be left that often!"

"Yes, they can. There are times of year when more babies are born, and June is one of those times. The nuns don't keep any records beyond the dates a baby comes in and goes out. Tracing these children isn't anything anyone wants. That's why there's a hole in the convent wall to begin with. Strict anonymity is what they want."

"We can't do anything to find him?"

"Not a thing," Jarrod said, but he turned toward her and sat back on the edge of his desk, to get closer to eye level with her. "Know this, though, Bee. The homes the sisters find for their foundlings are good homes. That's why mothers leave their unwanted children there – because they know there are people who can't have children but want them, and they know the sisters will be very careful and caring about placing a foundling with a family. You can be confident that your son is in a good home, living a good life."

Her eyes welled up. "I could have given him that. Nick and I could have given him that – if I had just had the courage."

Jarrod sighed. He couldn't dispute that.