A Name in the Dark

in foster care as a ward of the court. Since she turned eighteen, she’s been trying to track down her birth mother. The only evidence she has that her mom was ever a part of her life—other than her fading memories—is a photograph she keeps as a memento, a washed-out Polaroid taken at a beach. In it, a young blond woman wraps a towel around a toddler girl with shoulder-length blond hair. They’re both facing the camera with the biggest smiles you can imagine. And yes, the young mother looks a lot like Paige.

When I say “fading memories,” it’s because Paige still remembers the day in the courthouse when her mother gave up custody. She was four. After that, Paige quickly got lost in the system. She was shuffled around to a number of foster parents who collected kids as meal tickets, cashing in on state benefits to earn a living. By Paige’s account, the best of these foster parents were only verbally abusive. The worst… well, I don’t need to paint the picture.

Paige believes her mother abandoned her as an act of protection. The vague memories of her mother involve living in small motel rooms, moving around a lot, and watching her mother cry—hardly a stable environment for bringing up a daughter. Her mother made a sacrifice twenty-one years ago, and Paige now believes she can take care of her.

With no help from government agencies, Paige has taken up the search on her own. She even hired a private detective at one point. Yes, she found the investigator through Father Ramon. Yes, that was how we met.

Three years later, I’m still helping her search through boxes of old files on the off chance we stumble on some nugget of information that we missed the last time we did this—some random document related to the birth or history of Paige Alexandra Whitaker. The two documents she does have are an application for a Social Security card and an order terminating guardianship, in which the names of the judges, attorneys, and her mother are redacted. Both these forms have the same date.

The fact that there are two documents with the same date for a Social Security number and a termination of guardianship suggested one thing—Paige Whitaker is not her real name, and her mother created a whole new identity on the day the child was legally abandoned.

Our online searches resulted in nothing. No forms seemed to exist for this name-change document… until we found a government warehouse where the hard copies were kept. Paige and I borrowed the documents a couple of months ago. Well, “borrowed,” may be taking some artistic license. The process did involve Paige reconfiguring my City of Los Angeles employee access card for administrative access to every government building in the county, and I did have to pose as an internal auditor at the Hall of Records. But we fully intend to return every single box as soon as we’re done.

Now that her relationship with Brock is over, Paige has pulled these boxes out of our downstairs storage locker. Clearly, his recent departure has reignited her obsession with finding her mother. We comb through the boxes, looking for evidence that a four-year-old girl changed her name to Paige Whitaker. The Chinese food arrives, and we continue to read one legal document after another. We’re still reading when the Chinese food has been eaten and the leftovers have been put in the refrigerator.

It’s one in the morning by the time my eyes are so watery I can’t look at another piece of paper. I wish I could stay up later, but exhaustion sends me off to bed while Paige continues her search. There’s no point in telling her she should to go sleep too. There’s no stopping her. We’ve been here before. We’ll be here again.

Chapter 5

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I CALL CARMEN’S HOUSE and speak to Leona about setting up an appointment. The housekeeper’s voice is sharp and direct and vibrates over the phone. Every syllable is overenunciated as if she’s delivering a direct order to an inferior.

Leona requests that I come this morning and explains that Mrs. Viramontes is anxious to meet me. My schedule at the library is flexible enough that I can come and go as I need and no one bothers me, which is helpful for playing hooky. I ask Leona for directions, and she’s further annoyed that I would bother her with such trivialities. After I hang up, I decide to make her my prime suspect out of spite.

I slide open my bedroom door. On normal nights, Paige doesn’t bother to barricade me in. We’ve been living together for two years, and at first, we practiced the ritual of entombing me. Nothing ever happened. Then one morning, Paige left for an all-day seminar and forgot to unlock me.

By the time I woke and called her, she was too far to come back. I spent the day in my room. I should not have had all that Gatorade the night before. Since then, unless I’m worked up or not feeling well before bed, we leave my door unlocked. Paige feels safe enough by now—though I think she locks her bedroom door.

There’s no sign of her this morning, but our living room is a disaster. Boxes and papers litter the entire expanse of the floor. I can only presume she’s out on a run. It’s a little late for her to be doing that, but I’m not surprised since she was up until all hours last night.

I leave send her a quick Good morning! text and head off.

* * *

Carmen Viramontes’s house is situated in a beautiful Pasadena suburb, lined and shaded by an endless column of elm trees. There are few cars parked on the street among these sprawling homes except for the trucks of gardeners and various utility vehicles at work. All the nice cars are parked in the driveways and behind the gates. The house sits behind a large wrought-iron gate surrounded by