The Mercer Foundation lobby smells like lemon cleaner and money.
Glass doors glide open in front of me, releasing a breath of warm air that carries coffee, copier ink, and that faint tang of hospital disinfectant drifting up from the hill. For a second, the brightness makes my eyes water—light bouncing off polished tile, chrome donation boxes, the giant abstract wave of the Mercer crest etched into the floor.
“Mrs. Mercer!” the receptionist chirps, standing so fast her rolling chair bumps the wall behind her. Her Mercer-blue scarf is knotted just right, crest pin glinting at her collarbone. “What a nice surprise.”
I paste on the smile I’ve been practicing in bathroom mirrors. “Please, call me Hannah,” I say. “I was in town and thought I’d stop by. Daniel’s always telling me I should see more of what you all do here.”
“We’re honored,” she says, and I can’t tell if she means it or if that line is stapled to the underside of her tongue. “Happy New Year, by the way.”
“You too,” I say, shrugging off my coat. The wool is still threaded with the scent of last night’s terrace smoke, but in here everything feels scrubbed clean, curated. “Is it okay if I look around a bit? I’ve only ever rushed through on my way to events.”
“Of course.” She taps quickly at her keyboard. “We’ve got a couple of board members upstairs but no big meetings. I’ll let them know you’re here in case they want to… pop down and say hello.”
In other words, in case Evelyn wants to supervise.
“No need to bother anyone,” I say lightly. “I’m just curious.”
“Well, we love curiosity,” she replies. “There’s a new installation up on the far wall you might enjoy—the Adoption Success Stories. Mrs. Mercer was very involved in curating it.”
My teeth press into the inside of my cheek. “I’d love to see it.”
She beams, reaching for the phone. “I can have one of our donor liaisons give you a quick tour, if you’d like. They’re much better at explaining the programs than I am.”
My stomach tightens. We rehearsed this over encrypted messages, but hearing her say it out loud makes it real.
“That would be great, thank you,” I say. “I don’t want to get the stats wrong when my friends ask what my in-laws actually do.”
She laughs, dialing an extension. “Julia? Hi. Could you send Riley down? Yes, the new liaison. Mrs. Mercer’s daughter-in-law is here and wants a quick tour of the lobby. Thanks.”
She hangs up, oblivious to the way my pulse leaps at the name.
“She’s wonderful,” the receptionist adds, smoothing a stack of glossy brochures. “Such a hard worker. We’re lucky to have her.”
“That sounds familiar,” I murmur.
While we wait, I drift toward the windows. Outside, Harbor Glen’s winter light hangs low and gray over the peninsula, picking out the lines of the back road that snakes up behind the town, the one locals use to bypass the manicured center. On the hill, the hospital rises in glass and steel, Mercer crest splashed across its foundation wing like a signature on a check no one can bounce.
The receptionist’s keyboard clacks behind me; a coffee machine sighs somewhere deeper in the suite. A family bundled in coats crosses the courtyard outside, a little boy tugging at his mother’s sleeve, pointing at a banner left over from the Light the Harbor parade. The stylized wave logo repeats down the fabric, telling everyone who funded the boats, the lights, the spectacle.
Love and harm, printed in the same ink.
“Mrs. Mercer?”
I turn.
Riley stands a few feet away, framed by the hallway leading back to the offices. Her hair is twisted into a low bun, a few strands loose to soften the lines. She wears a navy blazer over a white shell, slacks, flats that squeak faintly on the tile. A plastic badge clipped to her lapel reads RILEY S. – Donor Liaison, the Mercer crest floating in a watermark behind her name.
For a second, I see her in the dim light under the broken streetlamp at the docks, breath steaming between us, eyes wary. Then the overlay snaps back into place: professional, approachable, the kind of woman donors trust with six-figure checks.
“Hannah,” I correct gently, stepping close enough to make it sound friendly. “Thank you for taking the time.”
Her smile is bright enough to pass inspection, but her eyes meet mine for half a heartbeat too long. “It’s my pleasure,” she says. “Welcome to the Foundation.”
The receptionist sighs, satisfied. “I’ll let you two explore,” she says. “If you need anything, just holler.”
“Will do,” Riley says.
She gestures toward the far side of the lobby, her hand hovering near my elbow without touching. “We can start with the donor wall,” she says, voice pitched for public consumption. “Then, if you’re up for it, I’ll show you the adoption installation. It’s our pride and joy.”
“Lead the way,” I say.
We walk past a glass case displaying awards: community impact trophies, hospital plaques shaped like hearts, a framed photo of Evelyn accepting a “Women Who Heal” award. The Mercer crest appears on every frame, every certificate, every etched piece of glass, a wave that has washed over the town and left its mark.
“How are you here?” I ask under my breath, the words barely moving my lips.
“Temp contract through a partner nonprofit,” she murmurs back, smile never faltering. “They needed extra donor support for year-end giving. I needed a badge.”
We slow in front of the donor wall, a floor-to-ceiling grid of names engraved on brushed metal plates. Each row corresponds to a giving level, from “Harbor Lights” all the way up to “Legacy Circle.” The Mercers take up a horizontal band across the top, their names embedded like a crown molding.
“This is where the town’s social ladder hangs itself,” Riley says, louder now, in the tone of a practiced guide. “As you know, we couldn’t do what we do without our community.”
“I’ve heard that line before,” I say, letting a hint of amusement color my voice.
“You probably heard it from your mother-in-law,” she replies. “She helped design the categories.”
“Of course she did,” I say.
We keep moving, the soles of our shoes registering the change from tile to a subtly textured carpet runner. Security cameras blink from the corners of the ceiling, their little red lights winking. Riley’s hand drifts to her blazer pocket, fingers pressing over the outline of her phone.
On the far wall, the Adoption Success Stories installation glows.
It’s backlit, the panels recessed into the wall like stained glass. Rows of framed photographs make up the main field: toddlers in holiday sweaters, teenagers in graduation caps, babies in their adoptive parents’ arms. Each frame holds a caption on a brass plaque: “Mia, age 6 – thriving in her forever family!” “The Johnsons, grateful for a second chance at parenting.” “From NICU to nursery: baby Noah’s miracle.”
At the center, in scripted letters carved into glass: Every child deserves a harbor.
My throat tightens.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, because that’s the expected line.
“It photographs very well,” Riley answers, tone airy.
We step closer, the light from the wall warming our faces. The glass hums faintly with hidden electronics. Somewhere, a vent pushes out temperature-controlled air that smells faintly of plastic, new paint, and the tang of fresh toner.
“Take your time,” Riley says, just loud enough for the receptionist to hear across the lobby. “I can answer questions about any of our programs.”
I move to the first row, forcing my breathing to stay even. “Have you met many of these families?” I ask.
“Some,” she says. “Some I’ve met in person.” Underneath the words, she adds, “Some in files.”
She slips the phone from her pocket and holds it in the palm of her hand, angling the screen toward the wall like she’s using it as a camera. From where I stand, I can see the app open—not the camera, but a grid of tiny thumbnail faces, each with a code beneath: 2C, 5G, 8F.
“Go ahead and point to ones that speak to you,” she says.
I let my finger hover over a photo of a boy about ten, front teeth slightly crooked, arms looped around a golden retriever. His adoptive parents sit behind him on a white sofa, coordinated in blues and grays that match the Mercer branding.
“He’s cute,” I say.
“That’s Evan,” Riley replies, scrolling gently with her thumb. “Here he’s labeled as adopted at two after a ‘difficult start.’”
I lean in, pretending to read the plaque. “What was his start?” I ask.
Her voice drops a fraction. “In my records,” she says, “Evan spent his first three years bouncing between three foster homes. One was flagged for neglect, one for physical abuse. No mention of the Mercers until the day the case closed early.”
Light from the wall reflects in her pupils, making her eyes look like they’re burning.
“But hey,” she adds, a little louder. “He looks happy now, right?”
The receptionist glances over, sees us smiling, and relaxes.
I move along the row.
A teenage girl in a soccer uniform, number eleven on her jersey, stands between two women at a game, all three grinning at the camera. The plaque reads: “Sofia, thriving on and off the field thanks to our Family Futures program.”
“She’s in your files too?” I ask.
Riley’s thumb taps, finds a match. “Case 9D,” she says quietly. “Adopted at eight. Hospital notes mention ‘behavioral dysregulation’ and ‘attachment concerns.’”
“Is that code for ‘trauma’?” I ask.
“That’s code for ‘this kid has every reason not to trust anyone,’” she says. “Four years after this photo, she ran away. Last known address was a shelter in Queens. No update since.”
My skin prickles. I stare at the smiling girl in the frame, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, mud on her knees.
“So these are… snapshots,” I say. “Frozen on the day the narrative looked good.”
“Best foot forward,” Riley says. “Everything else goes under the foundation rug.”
We keep moving, the rhythm of our little play steady: I point, she provides the official line for any onlooker and the real line for me.
“This one?” I ask, gesturing to a photo of a couple in front of a Christmas tree, each holding one of a pair of twin infants dressed in matching red onesies. The plaque says, “The Parkers—double the joy!”
“The Parkers,” she echoes, scrolling. “Private international adoption, expedited through a Mercer partner agency. One twin’s paperwork includes a birth certificate from overseas. The other twin’s trail starts at Mercer hospital.”
“You mean—”
“I mean one has a country and a mother on paper,” she says, voice tight, “and one appeared like a magic trick in our state system, with a birth date and no preceding file. Guess which kid gets searched for when a woman in that country years later looks for her stolen baby?”
Heat crawls under my collar, prickling my scalp. I picture Lydia’s memorial tree at the cliffs, the wind tearing at the branches while Evelyn smoothed her hand down the trunk like an owner.
“Riley,” I say, keeping my voice steady, “why put these up if the stories don’t hold?”
“Because donors like outcomes,” she says. “And because if you control the visible story, you can control the questions people forget to ask.”
My fingers tighten on the strap of my bag. Control the visible story. Like wiping “two minors unaccounted for” off a police report.
We reach the middle section, where the photos get larger, framed in thicker metal. Centerpiece kids. The ones the foundation trots out for galas and speeches.
“Here we go,” Riley says under her breath. “Premium lies.”
I point to a boy with dark curls and a bright smile, maybe six, standing beside an older woman in a winter coat. Behind them, the hospital wing fills the background. “Reunited at last,” the plaque says. “Grandmother and grandson, brought together through our kinship program.”
“What’s wrong with this one?” I ask.
“In the database,” she murmurs, “there’s a grandmother who spent four years petitioning for kinship placement and kept getting denied. Caseworker notes quote her as ‘overly emotional’ and ‘uncooperative.’ Her grandson was placed with a non-relative family tied to a donor. Six months later, after a ‘review,’ he’s suddenly with her. And then they use her as proof the system works.”
I swallow hard. “So they blocked her, then fixed their own mistake and put it on a wall.”
“Good deeds and theft on the same plaque,” she says. “Your in-laws love a paradox.”
My gaze snags on a photo in the next row and won’t let go.
It’s a girl around twelve, sitting on a dock with her feet in the water. The harbor stretches behind her, all gray-blue and boat masts. She looks straight at the camera, chin tipped up, a small, stubborn smile on her face. Her hair hangs in dark waves around her cheeks, and there’s something in the angle of her nose, the set of her mouth, that stirs a strange echo in my chest.
The plaque reads: “Lily – found her forever family after a rocky start in life.”
I feel my knees lock.
“This one,” I say, forcing my voice not to shake. “Tell me about this one.”
Riley glances at the photo, then at me. I know she sees the similarity; her eyes flick between our faces, calculating. “You sure?” she asks softly.
“I wouldn’t have asked,” I say.
She shifts her phone, thumb moving faster now. “Lily,” she whispers. “Case 14B offshoot. Went through a series of emergency placements. Paperwork’s a mess, because someone edited the file midstream. Half the entries reference a different medical record number that doesn’t exist anymore.”
The air feels thinner. “Case 14B,” I repeat. “That’s… my year.”
“I know,” she says. “There’s a note about a ‘parallel infant’ flagged in one version of the chart, but the reference is gone in the scanned copy. Just… deleted.”
“Parallel infant,” I echo, my tongue dry. “Like two babies whose stories crossed?”
“Like someone moved names around until nobody could tell whose record belonged to whom,” she says. “And then put one of the results on this wall and called it success.”
The lights behind the glass hum, and the image of the girl seems to sharpen. I fight the urge to reach out and touch the frame, to feel if the metal is cool under my fingertips.
“Riley,” I say, “this is—”
“I’m not done,” she cuts in, low. “Look at the lower row. The smaller frames.”
I drag my gaze down.
Baby faces fill the last band: swaddled infants, gummy smiles. The plaques list first names and years: “Aiden, 2019.” “Grace, 2020.” “Jasper, 2018.”
“What about them?” I ask.
Her thumb taps. “That’s the thing,” she says. “I don’t have them. Not in state records. Not in interstate compacts. Not in agency logs. I’ve cross-checked everything I can access, and for at least five of these kids, there is no adoption record.”
I frown. “None at all?”
“None that match the names, ages, or placement stories on these plaques,” she says. “No finalized decrees, no termination-of-rights orders, nothing. It’s like they only exist here, in Mercer documentation and in whatever private files your mother-in-law keeps locked up.”
A chill runs from the base of my skull down my spine. “So either your records are wrong,” I say, because I have to say it, “or—”
“Or these identities are fabricated,” she finishes. “Paper children built out of doctored hospital charts and foundation narratives. Which means somewhere, there might be real kids whose histories were erased to make these happy endings look tidy.”
My vision does a slow, nauseous tilt. I steady myself with a hand on the wall, fingers brushing the edge of a frame. The glass buzzes faintly under my touch.
“Careful,” Riley says under her breath. “There’s a camera right over your head. They like the angle where donors cry in front of this installation.”
I force my hand down, smoothing my dress. “You’re telling me,” I say, mouth tight, “that some of the children on this wall don’t exist on paper anywhere but here.”
“And maybe in a locked cabinet,” she says. “And maybe in a very expensive lawyer’s safe.”
“So if we blow this open,” I say, “we’re not just exposing corruption. We’re detonating identities. Families.”
“Yeah,” she says, lifting her phone to fake a photo. “That’s why I haven’t gone to the press yet. Imagine waking up to find out the child you’ve raised for seven years doesn’t exist in the state system. Or that you adopted one twin whose legal trail starts at birth and another whose trail starts at ‘placement complete.’”
I picture the Parkers with their twins, the careful matching outfits, the hopeful faces. My stomach flips.
“Do you think they know?” I ask. “The parents?”
Riley’s jaw flexes. “Some might suspect off,” she says. “Wrong dates, missing documents, weird comments from social workers. But the system makes it so hard to question anything once you have a kid in your arms. You complain too loudly, you get labeled ungrateful. Or unstable.”
Like a certain daughter-in-law.
My phone buzzes in my bag, the vibration muffled. I resist the urge to check it. Every gesture feels watched.
“So what’s the play?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the wall. “We can’t just rip this down and start shouting. That would hurt the kids the most.”
“We build the scaffolding before we pull the curtain,” she says. “Document everything we can. Cross-reference every face with every file. Find the safest way to give people the truth without setting their lives on fire.”
“You think that’s possible?” I ask.
“I think the alternative is letting Evelyn decide who gets to exist,” she says. “And we already know what she does with that power.”
We stand in front of the glowing wall, two small figures reflected in the glass alongside a gallery of curated joy. From across the lobby, the receptionist waves, a friendly silhouette behind her desk.
“How long can you stay embedded here?” I ask quietly.
“Couple of weeks, maybe a month,” Riley says. “Depends how much they like my donor-writeup style and how nosy I get. I’ve already noticed keycard-only doors behind the adoption program offices. I’m guessing that’s where the really interesting files live.”
The idea of her slipping through those doors while Evelyn’s name sits on every plaque makes my heart hammer.
“They’re going to do everything to protect this wall,” I say. “It’s their proof. Their absolution.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Which means when we go after it, we’d better have more than suspicions and a gut feeling.”
My gaze returns to Lily on the dock, her feet dangling over the water, her shoulders squared against the wind. I wonder what she was told about her beginning. I wonder whose story was trimmed to fit her into this frame.
“Do you see yourself in her?” Riley asks suddenly.
The question makes my breath catch. “Do you?” I shoot back.
Her mouth twists. “I see what I could’ve been,” she says. “If someone had made a different decision in a hallway.”
A couple enters the lobby behind us, their shoes squeaking on the tile. They move toward the elevator, the man passing a check to the receptionist with a cheerful, “Year-end gift, for the kid programs.” The receptionist thanks him, pointing proudly toward the wall where we stand.
“Your donations help make these stories possible,” she says.
The words hang in the air like perfume.
Riley steps back, raising her voice. “It’s incredible, isn’t it?” she says to me, performing again. “All these children, all these families brought together.”
“It really is,” I say, the lie catching on my tongue. “The town is lucky to have the foundation.”
My bag buzzes again, more insistent this time. I angle it so I can peek inside without looking obvious. A calendar notification glows on the screen: “Wellness Check-In – Dr. Kara Levin,” scheduled for later this week. Initiated by: E. Mercer.
I feel my spine stiffen.
“Problem?” Riley asks, still smiling for the room.
“New year, new tactics,” I say lightly.
Inside, my resolve hardens another shade. Evelyn is lining up a therapist to call me unstable at the exact moment I’m standing in front of her most polished lie, surrounded by smiling children whose paper trails vanish off the edge of the map.
I look once more at the wall, letting the images burn into my memory—the twins, the soccer girl, Lily on the dock, the babies named but not recorded.
“We’re going to need every piece of this,” I say under my breath. “Photos, captions, dates. All of it.”
“Working on it,” Riley murmurs. “Smile for the camera above us. The more harmless we look now, the more shocked they’ll be later.”
I tilt my head, conjuring a face of quiet admiration, the expression of a woman grateful for what this place has done, unaware of what it’s taken.
Inside, the mission changes shape.
It isn’t just about my birth certificate or Riley’s last name anymore. It’s about the kids trapped inside these frames, about the invisible ones whose stories were stripped to make these look clean. It’s about a town that measures virtue in donor levels and parade positions, never asking what washed up on the rocks beneath the cliffside mansions.
My phone screen goes dark again, Dr. Levin’s name fading out.
The wall in front of me keeps glowing, steady and bright, a lighthouse built on false coordinates.
The question I walk out with is not whether we can tear it down.
It’s whether we can do it without shattering every life wired into its light.