She quickly smiled.
"It's all right."
He stared.
She wiped her cheeks.
"I'm happy."
He touched her face.
Then laughed.
I watched from the porch.
The ranch owner stood beside me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, "I didn't know."
I looked toward him.
He kept his eyes on the garden.
"I knew the arrangement was unusual. I knew the money was more than ordinary expenses."
He swallowed.
"But I wanted a son."
I remained quiet.
He continued.
"My wife died years ago. I had nobody to inherit the place. Nobody to teach. Nobody to sit beside me at supper."
I understood loneliness.
But I also understood that loneliness could make a man selfish.
"You should've asked more questions," I said.
He nodded.
"Yes."
The admission surprised me.
He looked toward the boy.
"I told myself I was giving him a better life."
I studied him.
"And maybe you gave him comfort. Maybe you cared for him."
The man looked toward me.
"But that doesn't mean his mother didn't have a right to raise him."
His eyes filled.
"No."
For several moments, neither spoke.
Then he asked, "Does loving him count for anything?"
I considered the question carefully.
"To the boy? Of course it does."
He swallowed.
"But it doesn't erase what happened to his mother."
The ranch owner nodded slowly.
He looked older than he had when we arrived.
For the first time, I saw not an influential cattleman defending an arrangement he'd paid for, but a lonely man facing the possibility that something he loved had entered his life through another person's suffering.
That didn't excuse his choices.
It made them more complicated.
Eventually, he looked toward the older woman.
"She loves him."
I nodded.
"Yes."
He sighed.
"She always did."
The next several months were difficult.
There were interviews.
Hearings.
Documents to examine.
Witnesses who changed their stories.
Lawyers who argued over the validity of the supposed transfers and the responsibilities of the people who had received the children.
The two mothers had to tell their stories repeatedly.
They described the births.
The doctors.
The husbands.
The separation.
The lies.
The tree.
Sometimes their voices remained steady.
Other times, they broke down.
But neither withdrew her testimony.
When the older woman's former husband claimed she had willingly surrendered her son, she looked directly at him before the court.
"I held my baby in my arms."
Her voice was calm.
"You took him away and told me he was dead."
The man looked down.
She continued.
"I searched for him while you counted the money."
The courtroom became silent.