I tried not to blink or look away. “My gran, Rachel.”
“Alive?”
“Dead.”
“No cousins, aunts, uncles?”
Shaking my head, I tried to focus on the open sky beyond the glass wall. “I prefer not to talk about my past.”
He raised his palms, tipped his head back, checked out the ceiling for a moment, then slapped his hands down on the pile of folders in front of him. “Fair enough. I can respect that. Let’s get down to business then.”
He shoved a pile of folders towards me. Something to focus on. My heart rate immediately ratcheted down to a level I could control, allowing me to spend the next half hour chatting about innocuous matters like focus groups, interview questions and data collection, even though I loathed the very air he breathed.
Thankfully the first week I barely saw Gord. I spent my time conducting discussion groups with teens, teachers and parents in the meeting room on the third floor, a comfy blue room with soft couches, oceanscapes on the walls and pots of ferns and ivy. It was easy work and I established an effective rhythm in my discussions. Only once did I forget to record the first half hour of a session and had to go back to do it again. Guy looked in once in a while, smiled and gave me a thumbs up. At those times I felt like part of something normal. Something so comfortable I could’ve forgotten those old promises made in a moment of crushing guilt. I’d tell myself to pretend it didn’t happen. Move forward. Suppress it all. But then the memories came flooding back at night and I’d toss and turn so violently the sheets wrapped themselves in a tangle around my legs, then Guy woke up and stroked my back until I calmed down.
I was heading towards the toughest part of my life story. The part where I’d find Birdie or lose her completely and I wasn’t ready for either.
40
Before Linda Martin was assigned to my case, I had a temporary social worker. Martha was sixtyish and retired, returning to fill in for a maternity leave. I was in my final year of education when she called and asked me to meet at her office.
At first I thought she had news about Birdie. I raced to the meeting with the sun blinding me and my stomach rolling with nausea. The childcare people had left me alone since I entered university, so I was shocked to find myself in that yellow-walled office again, sitting in a chair across from a big, bustling woman with blunt-cut bangs and a brightly flowered top who’d somehow worked her way through every detail of my life history, yet she barely knew me.
After the usual formalities and introductions, she placed both hands flat on the table and leaned forward. I noticed every finger was adorned with a ring. Silver swirls, turquoise stones, copper bands. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
“I know. I’m a sucker for handmade jewelry,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Every damn craft fair and artisan stall – they can see me coming.”
“They’re pretty,” I said, hardly daring to breathe.
“Look, I suppose you’re wondering why I called you,” she said, a brief smile flickering across her face.
I nodded.
“I’ve been checking your files,” she said, crossing her arms over her ample bosom.
I shifted myself to get more comfortable in the metal chair. I remember wondering why the authorities were so reluctant to spend some money and buy decent furniture.
“Why me?”
She shuffled the pile of folders in front of her and opened one. “I received a phone call that I think you should know about. It prompted me to check your file and I found some grave irregularities.”
I leaned forward. Now this was interesting. Maybe someone was finally interested in me and my case. “Who called?”
“Someone who claims to be your father phoned yesterday asking about you and your sister.”
I blinked twice as if the light would suddenly change and I’d find myself somewhere else. Somewhere real. “Dennis? Dennis called?”
She nodded. “Yes. That’s the name he gave. But then I looked through your files to verify the information he gave me and I discovered that he’d called before.” She flipped through the sheets, tracing her finger along rows of numbers and words. All about me. My life summed up in a slim, brown folder. “It seems the calls began over ten years ago. At least three times a year. But if I’m reading this correctly you were never notified and he was never granted access to you or your sister.”
So Dennis hadn’t forgotten us. He’d tried to find us. Maybe even wanted us to come home. My eyes ached. Tears pressed at the back of my eyeballs. But I wouldn’t give anyone in that office the satisfaction of seeing me cry. “Where is he?”
“I can give you that information but I need you to confirm that you were never notified,” she said, fixing me with a quizzical look.
“I never heard a thing about him. Why?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to find out,” she said, smiling. “Your file is incomplete. Undocumented gaps of time, especially around the time your sister went missing.”
“Did they just forget or did someone take information out of the folder?”
“I can’t say yet, but I’ve found other clients’ records that look like they’ve been tampered with. And two of them are girls we know have been missing for years.”
“Why would anyone take the time to do that?”
“Maybe someone wants us to forget about these young women. I can’t say for sure, but perhaps the person who’s doing it knows what happened to them and wants to make it difficult for us to trace them.”
She put on a pair of reading glasses and studied the papers in front of her. I leaned forward and whispered.
“Martha, does it say my sister was sexually exploited by a wealthy, respected member of the community and nobody lifted a finger to help her? She was fifteen years
