“I'm your great-grandmother.”
Hank faced away from the bed. Ray pressed a hand over his mouth. Marcus fixed his eyes on the ceiling. Beside Dorothy, Caleb stood with his arms at his sides, unsure what to do with them.
I had witnessed countless first meetings with newborns. Fathers crying near incubators, mothers exhausted by difficult deliveries pressing kisses to their children's faces.
None of those moments looked quite like this one.
Dorothy seemed to have arrived at the very end of her journey only to discover an unexpected door still waiting to be opened.
CHAPTER 6
Sophie moved against her. Dorothy smiled, but grief quickly overtook it.
“I'm so sorry.”
Hank turned around.
Dorothy brushed the baby's forehead.
“Please forgive me. I should have kept your mother safe.”
Linda looked down.
No one contradicted her. No one explained that she could not have cured someone else's addiction, or that loving a person did not always mean you could rescue them.
Hank came closer.
“You gave her love.”
“It wasn't enough.”
“You gave her everything you had.”
Dorothy moved her head weakly.
“You can't know that.”
His expression shifted.
“I understand more than you realize.”
She looked at him, and something unspoken moved between them.
Then she turned back to Sophie.
“When she's older, will you tell her about me?”
“Yes,” Hank promised.
“Include the things that weren't so good.”
He looked puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
“Say I lost my temper sometimes.” A tiny smile returned. “And that I burned the rice.”
Ray chuckled under his breath.
“Tell her about the time I threw a shoe at her mother for sneaking out the window.”
Hank smiled.
“She'll hear it.”
“Tell her I spent too much time working.” Dorothy's face softened. “Tell her there were things that frightened me.”
“All of that,” Hank said.
She studied the child once more before looking seriously at each of the four men.
“But above everything else, promise she won't grow up believing no one wanted her.”
Every sound in the room seemed to disappear.
Hank began to answer, but Ray stepped forward before he could finish. His large hands were clasped together.
“We won't let her think that.”
Dorothy looked into his face.
“As long as we're here,” he added, his voice cracking.
Dorothy closed her eyes. Sophie stayed peaceful against her.
I checked the monitor. Dorothy's pulse had eased a little. Although her breathing remained shallow, the frightened urgency I had noticed before was gone.
As I leaned over to check her oxygen reading, some hair loosened from my bun. I pushed it back behind my left ear.
Dorothy opened her eyes.
She stared at me, concentrating on the side of my head with unusual intensity.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
Her lips formed a word.
“Turn.”
“Mrs. Chen?”
“Your head. Turn it.”
I glanced at Linda, who gave an almost invisible shrug.
Dorothy pointed with a trembling finger.
“Please turn.”
I moved my head slightly.
She was looking behind my left ear, where a small red crescent marked my skin.
A birthmark. My adoptive mother had always referred to it as my moon.
Dorothy's eyes widened, and her whole expression changed.
“What day were you born?”
The question made me inexplicably uneasy.
“June fourteenth.”
Hank swung his head toward me.
Dorothy closed her eyes as a tear traveled down her cheek.
“Oh.”
“Mrs. Chen?”
When she looked at me again, relief filled her face.
“Of course it is.”
I bent nearer.
“What do you mean?”
Her fragile hand reached for mine.
“You've come back as well.”
I thought the stroke must be affecting her.
“I'd never met you before last night.”
She looked at Hank. His face had lost its color.
“Hank?”
He made a small movement of his head toward Dorothy rather than toward me. I couldn't decide whether he was warning her or begging her for something.
Her fingers tightened slightly around mine.
Then Sophie shifted, and the strange exchange ended.
CHAPTER 7
Dorothy spent the next quarter of an hour speaking to her great-granddaughter.
She described a slender yellow house that had since vanished, the window over its kitchen sink, tomatoes raised in split buckets, and a cherry tree that never seemed to give them quite enough fruit.
She remembered teaching Marissa to ride a bicycle, school portraits, and Christmas mornings.
She talked about one miserable summer when the power was cut off for six days. They slept in the living room because its windows opened wider than those in the bedrooms.
Sadness accompanied the memories, but bitterness did not.
“When she got frightened, she would sing,” Dorothy murmured.
“What would she sing?” Linda asked.
Dorothy hummed a few notes. Three, then four more.
My body went rigid.
I recognized them.
The tune wasn't from a television show or a hymn I knew. I couldn't give it a title.
My mother had hummed that very sequence when I was small: an odd, unfinished little melody without lyrics.
I had always supposed she'd made it up.
I stared at Dorothy.
“How do you know that tune?”
Her humming stopped. Hank turned his gaze away.
Dorothy smiled faintly at me.
“I learned it years ago.”
Before I could question her further, someone opened the door.
An administrator stood in the entrance with my nursing supervisor directly behind him.
My stomach sank.
His gaze passed from me to the bikers and then to the baby in Dorothy's arms.
“Would someone explain what's going on here?”
For a moment, no one answered.
My supervisor fixed her attention on me.
“Evelyn?”
Linda moved forward.
“We have approval for an emergency visit.”
“Including transport out of neonatal care?”
“Yes.”
“To see this particular patient?”