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She heard him chuckle. “Got it. And when I get back, I hope you’ll let me pick up where we left off.”
“Just come back,” she said, thinking briefly of another man she’d loved—a man who hadn’t come back. “I’ll be waiting. I love you, Brock.”
* * *
Making the rounds of hospitals was taking more time than Val and Casey had expected. Usually, it involved a wait until a busy clerk got around to helping them. Often it required filling out a form and showing ID. Once, after they were told to come back later, they sat and waited more than an hour instead, only to learn that there was no record of a Matthew Peterson in the hospital files.
The one flicker of encouragement came when they checked the death records in the Kern County building. Their son’s name wasn’t there.
“At least we know he didn’t die.” Val tried to boost their spirits. But there was no need to mention another possibility because they were both aware of it. An unconscious child with no living parents and no ID on him could have been classified as a John Doe and buried or cremated without a name.
By the afternoon of the second day, they were worn-out, discouraged, and barely halfway down the list of hospitals. Almost all the larger facilities, where the ambulance would most likely have gone, had already been ruled out. The places at the bottom of the list were more like clinics or specialty hospitals that were barely worth checking.
Needing a break, they stopped at a park, bought cold slushies from a vendor, and settled onto a bench with a playground nearby. Mothers and babysitters watched the children sliding, swinging, climbing, and running.
“One of those kids could almost be him,” Val murmured.
“Not really. Our son would be too old for a playground like this. He’d more likely be skateboarding or riding a bike.”
“Oh, Casey. What if we don’t find him?” She sagged against his shoulder.
“Only one thing’s for sure. We won’t find him if we stop looking. But you’re worn-out. We could take a break, maybe do a nice dinner and a movie, then start fresh tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “No, let’s keep looking. That’s why we came here.”
“All right.” Casey glanced at his watch. “We’ve got time to try one more hospital before the records office closes. The next one on the list is Kern Medical. It isn’t far from here.”
“Fine.” Val stood. “Let’s go.”
Kern Medical was the last of the larger hospitals they’d tried. They found the records office on the building directory board and followed the signs. To their relief, no one else was waiting to talk to the single clerk, a friendly looking middle-aged woman in a wheelchair behind a low counter. She gave them a smile as they approached the counter. The name tag on her pink jacket read LUCILLE.
“Perfect timing. I just finished my book.” She held up the popular romance novel she’d been reading. “So how can I help you?”
Casey handed her a photocopy of the article about the accident. “We know the parents were killed, but we need to know what happened to the boy. He’d been adopted. But he’s . . . our son.”
Lucille read the article. Then she appeared to read it again. “Oh, my stars!” she exclaimed. “I remember this! Awful accident. Little boy with red hair. His name was Matt, right?”
Val’s knees seemed to dissolve beneath her. Casey pulled up a folding chair for her. She sank onto it.
“I used to work the trauma unit as a nurse,” Lucille said. “They transferred me down here when my legs gave out, but I remember that night like it was last week. When the ambulance couldn’t get through the traffic to Memorial, they brought him here. We didn’t even know his name until later. None of us expected him to pull through, but he was a little fighter. He just wouldn’t give up.” She studied Val and Casey through her glasses. “You say he’s your son? I certainly see a resemblance.”
“I gave him up as a baby,” Val said. “I was young, desperate, and unmarried.”
“But we plan to do something about that,” Casey said, squeezing Val’s shoulder. “So, do you know what happened to him?”
“Only that we kept him for about a month, while he recovered. He was quiet, hardly talked at all. We could tell he’d been traumatized.”
“And then what? Where did he go?”
“We tried to find relatives. But nobody ever showed up to claim him. We had no choice except to turn him over to Social Services. They should have a record of where he’s gone. You can find their offices in the county building. But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Even if you were to leave right now, they’d be closed by the time you got there.”
“We can’t thank you enough, Lucille,” Val said. “You can’t imagine how much this means to us.”
“You can thank me by letting me know how this all turns out,” Lucille said. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my days wondering what happened.”
“You’ve got it. It’s a promise.” Casey gave her a grin, took Val’s hand, and walked back outside with her, across the lawn toward the parking lot.
To Val, the whole world seemed to have changed. The low-hanging sun streaked the clouds with highlights of gold. A flock of blackbirds etched calligraphy against the sky. A sprinkler on the grass shot up watery jets that sparkled like diamonds. Her baby had lived, and they’d found a way to locate him.
