The Homecoming by Anne Marie Winston Page B

about to begin. This was where she would claim Nick was really his Noah.
    â€œI called Social Services and applied to become his temporary foster home, which they granted. They tried to find family, both the mother’s and the father’s, but no one ever came forward, so after going through a lengthy adoption process that lasted over a year, I adopted Nicholas. And shortly after that we moved to Portland because I got a good job offer there.”
    â€œAnd the money the woman left?”
    â€œI put it in a trust for Nicholas. It’s in care of a local bank until he turns eighteen. I couldn’t access it if I wanted.”
    The lawyer let a silence hang. After a moment, he said, “Miss Aston, why do you think your son is Noah Crosby?”
    Danny closed his eyes for a moment. God, it still hurt so badly.
    â€œNick has had nightmares,” she said, “from the time he was an infant. Every once in a while he wakes up screaming.”
    â€œI’m no expert,” said Danny’s lawyer, “but don’t a lot of children do that occasionally? Mine did.”
    â€œThis is different,” she said in the same patient tone she’d employed all along. Why wasn’t she angry at thisinterrogation, Danny wondered. “Margo had told me Nick was about a year old so I chose a January birth date. By his third birthday, he could articulate his dreams. It’s always the same dream. Over and over. As he’s grown older, he’s continued to describe the dream, and it’s still always the same. Someone is stealing him. Now, of course, someone is stealing him from me, which obviously wouldn’t have been the case four years ago, but the basic dream is the same.”
    â€œHave you ever consulted anyone about these dreams?”
    â€œDream,” she corrected. “One dream, many times over. And the answer is yes. After we moved to Portland I joined a group called the Parents Adoption Network. After several months I mentioned the dream. Most people had your reaction, but one mother took me aside later and told me that if it were her child, she’d be concerned, too, that what I described wasn’t normal. So I took him to a child psychologist, whom we’re still seeing. The dream hasn’t changed, but he’s been having fewer nightmares recently.”
    â€œThat still doesn’t explain why you think your child is Mr. Crosby’s son.”
    â€œTiming,” Sydney said. “I only became aware of the traffic in stolen infants after I joined PAN. A few months ago, Nick’s counselor told me the fact that Nick had the same dream over and over might be significant. Of course, I immediately wondered if he was a stolen baby. I did some research on children who had been stolen within the year before I got Nick. Thetime frame of Noah Crosby’s kidnapping fits most closely within the Pacific Northwest. The only other one that matches the time frame, assuming Nick hadn’t been with Margo very long, was a child taken in Georgia, and that was a newborn. I think this might explain why Nick didn’t seem attached to Margo when they first arrived. And there was something else: I told you how odd I thought it was that Margo didn’t seem especially good at calming her child. He screamed a lot at first and seemed to have a lot of gastric distress. Margo said it was just gas, but after I became his foster mother, I took him to a doctor who diagnosed him as severely lactose intolerant. Looking back, I don’t believe Margo knew it.”
    Danny caught his breath and his heart leaped. His son, Noah, had been lactose intolerant. Felicia had also been allergic to dairy products. She hadn’t even been able to eat a slice of their wedding cake because of the milk content in the recipe and the butter in the frosting. Noah had inherited it. He’d even had a reaction to Felicia’s breast milk and they’d had to put him on soy formula.
    It