I set my bag down.
“Corinne?”
I faced the living room.
The bassinet that had stood beside the tall windows was gone.
For three weeks after Owen came home from the hospital, Corinne had kept it there because she said the afternoon light calmed him.
I entered the kitchen.
No bottles drying beside the sink.
No formula container near the coffee machine.
No burp cloth hanging over the back of a chair.
The refrigerator door, usually covered with appointment reminders and feeding schedules, was almost bare.
A pressure began building in my chest.
“Corinne?”
Mrs. Pearl appeared at the top of the staircase.
She worked for us for six years.
She saw Corinne and me move into the house before we were married.
She had helped plan our engagement dinner.
She had cried the morning Owen was born.
She also always treated me with respectful warmth.
That morning there was nothing warm in her face.
