Then Daniel said, with a steadiness I knew cost him something, “Send them in.”
The door opened less than a minute later.
Laura came in first.
She was not what I had imagined.
I had expected older, maybe, or harder. Someone polished enough to seem safe in a house full of newborn exhaustion. Instead she looked about twenty-eight, with an overwashed black cardigan, plain brown hair pulled into a loose knot, and the exhausted, apologetic posture of a woman accustomed to explaining herself before anyone asked. Beside her stood a little girl with dark curls, red sneakers, and a stuffed rabbit clutched in one hand.
The moment the child saw Noah through the glass, she burst into tears.
Not shy tears. Not confusion. Immediate, full-body sobbing.
“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I’m sorry!”
The room froze.
Laura looked down at her daughter, shocked. “Emma?”
The little girl wrapped both arms around her mother’s leg and cried harder.
“I just wanted to hug the baby!”
My heart sank with sickening certainty.
Laura’s face drained of color.
“What are you talking about?”
