Chapter 6
Lorenzo did something nobody around him expected.
He did not summon Maeve.
He asked whether she wanted contact.
Through lawyers.
Maeve’s answer:
“Not directly yet.”
She wanted an independent therapist experienced in post-adoption reunification involved before Birdie heard more.
She did not want to appear at the mansion.
Did not want security.
Did not want money.
Did not want Birdie photographed meeting her.
And did not want anyone calling her “Mom” on the child’s behalf.
Lorenzo respected every condition.
That made Grace smile slightly.
“Progress.”
He ignored her.
Then Maeve provided her correspondence file.
She had kept copies.
Year one:
A letter describing herself in simple terms.
“I like hiking. I hate olives. I still have the hospital bracelet from the day you were born.”
Year two:
A birthday card.
No request to meet.
Year three:
A longer letter addressed to Lorenzo.
I am not trying to undo Elena’s place in Birdie’s life. I know she became Birdie’s mother. I only want you to know that if Birdie someday asks whether the woman who gave birth to her cared, the answer is yes.
Lorenzo had never seen it.
He read that paragraph four times.
Then another document appeared.
A response Maeve received seven months earlier.
Purportedly from Lorenzo.
Birdie is emotionally fragile regarding maternal identity. Continued contact attempts are disruptive. Do not send further correspondence.
Not his words.
Not his signature.
Maeve stopped writing after that.
The independent custodian traced the file.
Created on a Mercer Foundation laptop assigned to Isolde.
There was no legitimate reason for ambiguity anymore.
Isolde’s attorneys shifted position.
They argued she had been protecting Birdie from emotionally destabilizing contact.
Grace responded:
“Then why impersonate Lorenzo?”
No answer.
“Why falsify Maeve’s preference?”
No answer.
“Why keep letters?”
Silence.
The motive became more personal through Isolde’s private messages with a friend.
Two years earlier:
Lorenzo still talks about Elena like she’s in the next room.
Friend:
That’s grief.
Isolde:
There is also this other woman sitting in a file waiting to become important.
Friend:
Maeve?
Isolde:
Don’t use her name.
Another message:
If Birdie starts romanticizing some birth-mother reunion, I become the third woman competing with ghosts and biology.
That sentence revealed the insecurity.
But it still did not explain the method.
Why build years of false correspondence?
Why start before she and Lorenzo were even dating?
Then investigators checked the date of Isolde’s first access to Birdie’s file.
June 3.
Her first dinner alone with Lorenzo:
July 17.
May you like
And on June 5—two days after she opened the file—Isolde had searched the foundation directory for Lorenzo’s private contact information.
The engagement story was beginning to look different.
