Chapter 3: A Visit at Four

At three fifty-two, Grant parked outside the family center. He stayed in the car until four because he did not want Maisie to see him waiting through a window and mistake it for a performance.

She was already seated when the caseworker brought him into the visitation room. A purple crayon lay across a coloring page. Captain the rabbit occupied the other chair.

"You came," Maisie said.

"At four."

"It's four-oh-three."

Grant checked his watch. "Then I owe you three minutes."

She did not smile, but she moved Captain onto her lap so Grant could sit.

The caseworker introduced herself as Ms. Alvarez and took a chair near the door. Grant appreciated that Maisie could see her. He had spent the morning rehearsing questions, and now every one sounded like an interview.

"What are you drawing?" he asked.

"A horse."

"I can see that now."

"What did you think it was?"

"A suspiciously confident dog."

Maisie colored in one hoof. "It's a horse."

"My mistake."

For several minutes they worked on separate pages. Grant had picked a lighthouse. His beam of light looked like a slice of pizza. Maisie leaned over, inspected it, and slid him the yellow crayon without a word.

"You knew my mother," she said at last.

"She was my sister."

"I know that. Did you like her?"

"I loved her. We also fought."

"What about?"

Grant put down the crayon. "Something I should have talked to her about. I didn't."

Maisie kept her eyes on the horse. "She said you thought you were right about everything."

"She was right about that."

"She said you used to take the raisins out of oatmeal cookies because you thought they were chocolate chips."

"Only once."

"She said twelve times."

"Anna exaggerated when it made a story better."

Maisie laughed, then pressed her lips together. Grant kept coloring the lighthouse. When she laughed again, she let the sound finish.

"Why didn't you come?" she asked.

He had known the question would arrive. Knowing did not make him ready.

"I didn't know you were here. I didn't know about you when your mom was alive. She wrote to me, and I sent her letters back without reading them. That was my choice, and it was wrong."

Maisie's crayon stopped. "She said you would come if she needed you."

"I wish she'd been right."

"You mean she lied?"

"No. She believed something good about me. I failed her."

Ms. Alvarez looked up from her notes but did not interrupt.

Maisie drew a line so hard the purple wax broke. "People always have a reason."

"I have a reason. It doesn't make what I did all right."

For the rest of the visit she asked him no family questions. They debated whether horses could swim and whether the lighthouse keeper had a dog. At the end, Grant told her he had requested another visit on Thursday.

"If they approve it," he added.

"Everybody says if."

"I know. I can tell you what I've done. I asked, and I put Thursday at four on my calendar."

Maisie took his lighthouse drawing and turned it over. On the back she wrote THURSDAY in block capitals, then handed it back.

Grant put it in his coat pocket. She watched to make sure it stayed there.

In the corridor, Diane Voss was speaking to Ms. Alvarez. When she saw Grant, she stopped.

"How was it?" she asked him.

"Ask Maisie."

"I'm asking you."

"We colored."

Diane's gaze fell to the paper visible in his pocket. "I hope you didn't discuss anything distressing. She can become fixated on things adults say."

"She asked me why I didn't come. I answered."

"That was unwise."

"You can take it up with Ms. Alvarez. She was in the room."

Grant left before his temper could take the visit away from what it had been. In his car he photographed the word on the back of the lighthouse page and sent Tessa a short account. He did not send a picture of Maisie's face. He had no right to make her into evidence.

Thursday's visit was approved. He arrived at three fifty-five. Maisie brought Captain and a small deck of cards with two missing queens. They invented rules until she won three times. At the door, she asked him whether he knew what happened to her mother's things.

"I don't," Grant said. "Do you?"

"There was a box. Brown, with flowers on the side. Mom said it was for when I was older."

"What was in it?"

Maisie shook her head. "I saw pictures. And papers with her writing. Diane said I imagined it."

Grant kept his voice level. "When did she say that?"

"When I asked for it after I moved out of her house. She said I made stories up when I was upset."

"You can tell Ms. Alvarez about the box if you want. I can also ask Tessa to find out what happened to your mother's belongings."

Maisie folded the cards into their paper sleeve. "If you ask, will Diane know I told you?"

"I don't know. I'll ask how to handle that first."

She nodded, satisfied by an answer that did not pretend certainty.

Grant called Tessa from the parking lot. She asked him to write down Maisie's words while they were fresh, without adding guesses. Then Tessa requested the inventory made after Anna's death and the records of property transferred with Maisie between placements.

The next afternoon, Tessa emailed Grant two versions of the inventory. The earlier copy listed a decorated keepsake box among Anna's effects. In the later copy, the line had been crossed out. Beside it, in a different pen, someone had written: PROPERTY CLAIMED BY GUARDIAN.

There was no receipt attached.

Grant called Tessa. "Can we find who changed it?"

"We can request the original and its transfer history," she said. "Maisie remembered something the file had almost managed to lose."

Grant looked at the lighthouse drawing on his desk. On the back, beneath THURSDAY, Maisie had added two smaller words before giving it to him. He had noticed them only that morning.

COME BACK.

He opened his calendar and cleared the following Thursday at four.