CHAPTER 10: The Name on the List
The missing girl’s name was Tessa Bell.
She had been thirteen when she vanished from Alder House and was now living in Minnesota under a different surname.
Mara said Tessa remembered being driven away with two other children during a winter storm.
She had believed they were transferring to another licensed residence.
Instead, they spent months in a private home where they received little schooling and were discouraged from contacting relatives.
A county agency eventually intervened after a neighbor complained about the conditions.
The children entered separate foster placements and lost contact with one another.
Mara had found Tessa through a nonprofit reunion registry.
Tessa did not know who authorized the first transfer.
She did remember a woman with a silver bracelet who told her the paperwork had been approved.
Lillian believed the description might fit Alder House’s former administrator.
“Her name was Beatrice Venn,” Lillian said.
The administrator had retired decades earlier and reportedly lived alone near the coast.
Mara said Tessa was willing to speak with a state investigator but not with reporters.
I agreed that she deserved that choice.
I asked whether Richard had personally arranged the transfers.
Mara shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I know he lied to me about my mother, and I know he had the papers.”
Caroline reached for Mara’s hand and stopped before touching it.
“I owe you an apology,” she said.
“For what?” Mara asked.
“For accepting the story that you were dead without ever asking for proof.”
Mara’s face softened, though she did not smile.
“He made it easy for you to believe him,” she said.
“He made it difficult for anyone to believe me.”
The distinction stayed with me for the rest of the day.
Jessica had made choices that harmed me directly.
Richard had built an entire life around deciding which version of other people’s stories would be allowed to exist.
Those were separate wrongs, and I needed to keep them separate if I wanted to understand either one.
CHAPTER 11: What Jessica Knew
Jessica asked to meet in the office of a marriage counselor rather than at our house.
We had agreed to one session devoted to practical decisions, not reconciliation.
The counselor reminded us that neither person was obliged to make promises about the future.
Jessica admitted she had accepted Richard’s description of Caroline as unreasonable and jealous.
She had laughed along when he mocked his wife’s attempts to find his daughter.
