head in
my lap. I’m stunned. What’s this?
“I don’t understand,” I murmur, running my fingers through his hair 458 | P a g
e
E L JAMES
and gazing down at him. Christian closes his eyes and furrows his brow as if
he’s straining to remember.
“After I was found with the crack whore, before I went to live with Carrick and
Grace, I was in the care of Michigan State. I lived in a foster home. But I can’t
remember anything about that time.”
My mind reels. A foster home? This is news to both of us.
“For how long?” I whisper.
“Two months or so. I ha一ve no recollection.”
“Ha一ve you spoken to your mom and dad about it?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you should. Maybe they could fill in the blanks.”
He hugs me tightly. “Here.” He hands me the papers, which turn out to be two
photographs. I reach over and switch on the bedside light so I can examine
them in detail. The first photo is of a shabby house with a yellow front door
and a large gabled window in the roof. It has a porch and a small front yard.
It’s an unremarkable house. The second photo is of a family—at first glance,
an ordinary bluecollar family—a man and his wife, I think, and their children.
The adults are both dressed in dowdy, overwashed blue T-shirts. They must
be in their forties. The woman has scraped-back blond hair, and the man a
severe buzz-cut, but they are both smiling warmly at the camera. The man
has his hand draped over the shoulders of a sullen teenage girl. I gaze at
each of the children: two boys—identical twins, about twelve—both with
sandy blond hair, grinning broadly at the camera; there’s another boy, who’s
smaller, blonder, scowling; and hiding behind him, a copper-haired grayeyed
little boy. Wide-eyed and scared, dressed in mismatched clothes, and
clutching a child’s dirty blanket.
Fuck. “This is you,” I whisper, my heart lurching into my throat. I know
Christian was four when his mother died. But this child looks much younger.
He must ha一ve been severely malnourished. I stifle a sob as tears spring to
my ey
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