Birthright

got in his car.
    “Get the legal wheels greased, Leo. Dolan’s got a bug up his ass, and all I managed to do was shove it in deeper. I’m going to swing by and see Lana Campbell, give the Preservation Society’s attorney an update.”
    “She’s still out here.”
    “Then I’m on my way back.”
    A mile and a half out of town, behind a curving gravel lane, in a house Dolan had custom-built, Jay Cullen sat with his ex-wife and stared at Callie Dunbrook on video.
    He felt, as he always did when Suzanne pushed the nightmare in front of him again, a tightness in his chest, a curling in his belly.
    He was a quiet man. Had always been a quiet man. He’d graduated from the local high school, had married Suzanne Grogan, the girl he’d fallen in love with at first sight at the age of six, and had gone on to earn his teaching degree.
    For twelve years, he’d taught math at his alma mater. After the divorce, after he’d been unable to stand Suzanne’s obsession with their lost daughter, he’d moved to the neighboring county and transferred to another school.
    He’d found some measure of peace. Though weeks might go by without him consciously thinking of his daughter, he never went through a day without thinking of Suzanne.
    Now he was back in the house he’d never lived in, one that made him uncomfortable. It was too big, too open, too stylish. And they were right back in the cycle that had sucked them down, destroyed their marriage and broken his life to pieces.
    “Suzanne—”
    “Before you tell me all the reasons she can’t be Jessica,let me tell you the rest of it. She was adopted four days after Jessica was taken. A private adoption. She sat where you’re sitting right now and explained to me that after some research, she felt it necessary to have tests done. I’m not asking you to agree with me, Jay. I’m not asking for that. I’m asking you to agree to the tests.”
    “What’s the point? You’re already convinced she’s Jessica. I can see it on your face.”
    “Because she needs to be convinced. And you, and Doug—”
    “Don’t drag Doug through this again, Suze. For God’s sake.”
    “This is his sister.”
    “This is a stranger.” Absently, he laid a hand on Sadie’s head when she laid it on his knee. “No matter what blood tests say, she’s still going to be a stranger.”
    He turned away from the video image, away from the worst of the pain. “We’re never getting Jessica back, Suzanne. No matter how hard you try to turn back the clock.”
    “You’d rather not know, isn’t that it?” Bitterness clogged her throat. “You’d rather close it off, forget it. Forget her, so you can drift along through the rest of your life without hitting any bumps.”
    “That’s right. I wish to God I could forget it. But I can’t. I can’t forget, but I can’t let it drive my life the way you do, Suzanne. I can’t stand out there and let myself be slapped down and beaten up again and again the way you have.”
    He stroked Sadie’s head, her silky ears, and wished it were as easy to comfort Suzanne. To comfort himself. “What happened to us on December twelfth didn’t just cost me a daughter. I didn’t just lose a child. I lost my wife—my best friend. I lost everything that ever mattered to me because you stopped seeing me. All you could see was Jessie.”
    She’d heard the words before, had seen that same quiet grief on his face when he said them. It hurt, still it hurt. And still, he wasn’t enough.
    “You gave up.” It was tears now, cutting through thebitterness. “You gave up on her, the way you would have given up if we’d lost a puppy.”
    “That’s not true.” But his anger had already dissolved in weariness. “I didn’t give up, I accepted. I had to. You just didn’t see what I was doing, what I was feeling. You couldn’t, because you’d stopped looking at me. And after seven years of it, there wasn’t anything left to see. There wasn’t anything left of us.”
    “You blamed me.”
    “Oh no, honey, I never blamed you.” He couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand to see her spiraling back into that despair, that guilt, that grief. “Never once.”
    He stood up, reached for her. She still fit against him, two parts of one half, as she always had. He held her there, feeling her tremble as she wept. And knew he was as helpless, as useless to her as he’d been from the moment she’d called him and told him Jessica was gone.
    “I’ll have the tests. Just