I think I'm sorry I threw the picture at her.
"If you could have heard Mrs. Savage on the phone," Julia said, "you'd understand better. She lost her son—had him stolen—and she was still saving the birth certificate, after this long. She told me she knew she'd find him some day."
Mrs. Savage sounds just like Forential, Walt thought.
"She's been waiting all these years," Julia said. "She's never given up hope."
Still waiting for her ... son, Walt thought. Still waiting, still needing her son.
Walt had never thought much of his parents until now. They were obscured by Forential; they existed somewhere on Lyria. But suppose Julia were telling the truth? Would they have been more fond of him than Forential? Could they have been?
There were so many things he did not understand. He must ask Forential about the process by which babies are created; what was the connection between parent and child? It was all so puzzling.
... why not ask Julia?
"Wait a minute," Walt interrupted. "I understand so very little. How are babies made?"
And there was a harsh, peremptory knock on the door. The manager's angry voice came booming through the paneling: