Sara guessed not many people would be there at this time of the morning, and she was right. Visiting hours were well over. There was no nurse to send stragglers away. No one had bothered to lower the shade over the large windows so the babies could sleep in peace.
The dimmed hallway lights cast a warm glow on the rows of bassinets. The newborns were all wearing pink or blue knit hats. They were swaddled tightly in matching blankets. Their little faces were like raisins, some of them so new that their heads moved gently side to side, as if they were still floating in the womb.
Sara pressed her forehead to the window. The glass was cold. One of the babies was awake. His squinty eyes scanned the ceiling. Colorful cartoons were painted overhead—rainbows and fluffy clouds and plump rabbits. This was more for the parents than the babies. Newborns were extremely nearsighted. The basic eye structures were there, but months would pass before they learned how to use them. For now, the ceiling art was a pleasant blob.
The door behind Sara opened. She turned, expecting to find a nurse coming out of the bathroom. Instead, it was Lena Adams.
She had a tissue in her hand. Sara could see the dismay when their eyes met, then something like resignation. Lena headed toward the elevator.
“Wait,” Sara said.
Lena stopped, but didn’t turn around.
Sara instantly regretted the word. She didn’t know what to say. Was she sorry? Certainly, she felt bad that Lena had lost the baby. But that didn’t change what had come before.
All Sara could manage was, “You don’t have to leave.”
Slowly, Lena turned. She didn’t acknowledge Sara. Instead, she walked over to the viewing window. Her fingers rested on the edge of the sill. She leaned her forehead against the glass, the same as Sara had. She seemed to wall off everything else around her. There was something so tragic about the way she looked at the newborns. Her longing seemed to pierce the glass.
The familiar sense of trespass took hold. Sara opened her mouth to take her leave, but Lena didn’t give her a chance to speak.
“Is he the same?”
“Jared?” Sara asked. “Yes.”
Lena just nodded, her eyes still trained straight ahead. She moved her hand to her stomach, pressed the palm flat.
Again, Sara struggled against the instinct to offer comfort, to spin the situation in a more positive light. In the end, she couldn’t summon the energy. Somewhere in the pit of her chest, there was the capacity to feel compassion for this woman. Sara felt it stir occasionally, like a car engine trying to start on a cold day. It would rev and rev, but eventually, it always sputtered out and died.
Again, Sara tried to leave. “I should—”
“I never realized they were so small.” Lena’s features softened as she watched the newborn in front of her. “It must be scary to know how fragile they are.” Her breath fogged the glass. She seemed to be waiting for a response.
“You learn what to do.” Sara had grown up around babies. She couldn’t imagine a life without them.
Lena said, “I’ve never held a baby before.”
“You don’t have cousins?”
“No. And I never babysat or anything.” She gave a low laugh. “I wasn’t the kind of teenager people trusted with their kids.” Sara could imagine.
Lena stuttered out a long sigh. “I didn’t think it was possible to love something that needed me so much.”
“I’m sorry,” Sara said. “For what it’s worth.”
“For what it’s worth,” Lena repeated. “Nell doesn’t hate me so much anymore.”
Sara had felt the change, too, but she wasn’t sure it would last.
Lena said, “It was better when she hated me. I knew how to deal with that. We both did.” She turned her head to look at Sara. “It’s like she thinks losing the baby makes me a better person.”
Sara weighed the words, trying to decipher her motivations. Lena wanted something. She always wanted something.
“Thank you, Sara.” Lena turned back to the window. “I knew I could depend on you to not feel sorry for me.”
Sara needed to leave. She couldn’t muster her old hatred right now, but she knew she could be persuaded. “I should check on Possum.”
“It kills him every time he sees you.”
Sara couldn’t argue with that. “Still—”
“Did you get my letter?”
The letter.
Four years ago, Sara had opened her mailbox to find a handwritten letter from Lena. Sara had shoved the sealed envelope into her purse. She was late for work. She didn’t want to read it. Neither, apparently, did she want to throw it away. For almost a year, the letter had traveled around with Sara. To work, to the store, to dinner, back home. She moved it when she switched purses. She saw it every time she pulled out her wallet or searched for her keys.
Lena was studying her. “You read it.”
Sara didn’t want to admit it, but she said, “Eventually.”
“I was wrong.”
“Really?” Sara asked. The letter was three pages from a legal pad. Three tedious, tearstained pages filled with excuses and lies and blame shifting. “Which part were you wrong about?”
“All of it.” She leaned her shoulder against the glass. “I knew Jeffrey would come save me. And I knew that I was putting his life in danger.”
Sara felt her face start to flush. Her heart was a bird trapped in a cage. She had waited so long to hear this admission, this validation, and now all she could think was that Lena was working an angle.
Lena said, “You can’t light a match, then act surprised when your house burns down.”
Sara worked to keep her tone even. “You tried to warn him.” At least Lena had said as much in the letter. She’d devoted four lengthy paragraphs to her regret that Jeffrey simply would not take her sound advice. “You said you told him to stay away.”
“I knew he wouldn’t.” Lena stared openly at Sara. “I should be dead now, not him.”
Sara didn’t buy the sudden conversion. She tried to trick Lena, quoting the words Jared had told Nell. “He knew the risks when he put on the badge.”
“You think Will feels the same way when he goes to work?”
From nowhere, Sara was seized by the impulse to slap Will’s name out of her mouth. He’d investigated Lena almost two years ago when she’d let a suspect die in custody and stood by as another cop was stabbed nearly to death. Sara had been more disappointed than Will that he couldn’t make the case stick.
She told Lena, “The only thing you know about Will Trent is that he almost sent you to prison.”
“Almost.” Lena’s lips teased into a smile. The mask was starting to fall. “You know what I remember about my time with Agent Trent?” There was a strange lilt to her voice. “Seeing that he was already lost in you. And you’re in love with him, too, right? I can see it in your face. You were always so good at being in love.”
Sara shook her head. Now she could see where this was going. “It doesn’t make up for it.”
“You’ve obviously moved on,” Lena told her. “Both of us have moved on.”
“I didn’t have a choice, Lena. I had to move on because my husband was murdered.” Sara bit back the venom in her mouth. “I didn’t have a choice.”