I turned off the stove.
Then I looked down at my six-day-old daughter.
Her tiny fist rested against my collarbone.
Something inside me became completely quiet.
It was the same silence I had felt at sixteen in the hospice hallway.
The silence of finally understanding who wasn’t coming.
I carried Wren upstairs.
Placed her carefully in the bassinet.
Then I packed.
Diapers.
Formula.
Clothes for her.
Clothes for me.
The breast pump.
A toothbrush.
And one pale yellow blanket with tiny white ducks around the edge.
It was the first blanket Wren had ever been wrapped in.
Before Beverly took her.
Before anyone else held her.
I had hidden it in a drawer after Beverly announced that Wren would use her old family blanket instead.
I packed it.
Then I sat on the edge of the bed and opened my contacts.
There was one name I hadn’t called in almost two years.
