2. The Question

Junie wouldn't say the name again. Not that night, not the next morning over untouched pancakes, not when Rosalind asked in every soft voice she owned.

By Tuesday, Rosalind had the caseworker on the phone. "She flinched at the sound of a belt buckle," Rosalind said. "Full-body. Then she asked if someone called Uncle Em was in the house."

A pause on the line, papers shuffling. "That's — okay. That's worth flagging. I'd like to set up a forensic interview at the advocacy center. Let a trained interviewer talk to her, not us."

"Should I know something? Before we go in there?"

More shuffling. "Before her adoption match with you and Gareth, Juniper spent eleven weeks in an emergency foster placement. It's standard — kids get temporary housing while paperwork moves. The home was run by a licensed foster provider named Emmett Corliss."

Rosalind's hand found the counter to steady herself.

"Corliss," she repeated.

"You know him?"

"That's my husband's last name. Emmett is his brother."

Silence, the kind that has weight. "I didn't have that in the file," the caseworker finally said. "I'll need to note it. It doesn't mean anything on its own — family members sometimes do foster, and sometimes other family visits. But I'll flag the connection."

Rosalind hung up and stood in her kitchen a long moment, the phone warm in her palm, the word brother turning over and over.

She found Gareth in the garage, and she almost asked him right there — almost said his own brother's name and watched his face for the truth of it. But his back was to her, phone to his ear, voice pitched low in a way she didn't recognize.

"...she's asking about the house," he was saying. "What am I supposed to tell her?"

Rosalind stood frozen in the doorway, one hand still on the frame, and did not make a sound.