proves you aren't mistaken." Daniel opened a folder containing copies of the original intake sheet, the later transfer record, and the adoption intermediary's identification report. He explained the name error and the steps that had been taken to verify the match, carefully distinguishing what was documented from what the records could not establish. When he finished, Ezekiel asked to see the paper on which someone had written Walters instead of Walker.
He held it for a long time. One letter, copied badly and left unchecked, had helped turn a daughter into a stranger. He was angry at the clerk, the system, the years of unanswered requests, and at himself, though he could not have explained what more he might have done. Edith sat opposite him and did not interrupt. When he finally looked up, she said, "I knew there was a mistake. I tried to correct it, but I stopped when people told me to stop. I should have tried harder. I'm not asking you to make me feel better about that."
Ezekiel studied her face. He could see that she had spent years punishing herself, but he was not ready to offer the forgiveness she had not requested. "You got to go home from that shelter," he said. "You got to put that night away and raise your boy. My wife and I never went home from it, not really." Edith nodded, tears rolling down the lines beside her mouth. Daniel placed a hand lightly on his mother's shoulder, then waited while Ezekiel took several slow breaths. Nothing in the diner could undo the distance between them, and for once nobody tried to pretend otherwise.
"Does she know?" Ezekiel asked. Daniel said that Elizabeth Sanders, the woman once named Beatrice Walker, knew the broad facts and had chosen to receive a letter from her father. She was forty-four, married, and living in Athens, where she worked as a librarian at a public middle school. She had a daughter of her own, and she remembered enough of the flood to understand that the records had never told her the whole story. But she had also spent nearly four decades believing that both her parents were dead, and she wanted time to decide how to meet a man she had mourned as a child. Ezekiel looked toward the empty seat and whispered, "A librarian. Hazel always said she would own one."
Ruby returned with fresh coffee and asked whether the visitors wanted anything to eat. Edith declined, and Daniel ordered tea, though his untouched hands revealed that he had no appetite. Ezekiel pushed the brown bag toward the center of the table. "I ordered for two," he said, then gave a