Funny how thinking about that God of Joseph’s, and of all the things Joseph would do to Lily if I was bad, somehow made me feel safer inside that home, staring out at the boys on their bikes and the girls with their chalk, kids like me who had no idea what was going on inside Joseph and Miriam’s home. To them we were just the odd ducks on the block, what Momma used to call old Mrs. Waters from down the street, the widow, who walked around talking to her dead husband as if she were chatting on the phone. I imagined those kids out that window, the kids with the bikes and the chalk, and their own mommas and daddies telling them never to play with Isaac and Matthew ’cause they were weird. Not to talk to Joseph because he was an odd duck, and then later, when all was said and done, it would be those mommas and daddies who told police that they felt something funny was going on inside our home, all along, they felt that something wasn’t quite right. Something they couldn’t put their finger on.

But they didn’t do a thing about it.

HEIDI

I slip from bed once Chris leaves, quiet so as not to wake Zoe from sleep. Beside me, she sleeps like a newborn, on her back, arms up in the air: the starfish position, the rising sun casting a golden hue across her face. I watch her sleep, the sass and defiance at bay for a time, her features relaxed, her lips flirting with a smile. I wonder what it is that she dreams about, as she lets out a sigh, and rolls over onto her side, taking the warm spot on the ivory sheets where my body has just been. I reach for the comforter from the end of the bed, and pull it up over her shoulders, closing the blinds so the impending sunlight stays out of her eyes.

I walk into the hall, pulling the door to, and find my feet traipsing across the hall to the closed office door, my hand coming to rest on the satin nickel knob. I press my ear to the door and listen for signs of movement, of which there are none. My heart beats loudly, quickly in my chest. My palms begin to perspire.

I’m overwhelmed with a sudden need, a very basic human need, like food, shelter, clothing.

A need to hold that baby in my arms.

There’s no logic as I set my sweaty palm on that satin nickel knob, only an instinct, a reflex, some innate behavior.

I know that I shouldn’t and yet I do; I turn the knob silently, astonished to find it unlocked.

An omen.

They lay side by side on the pull-out couch, Willow and the baby, a green chenille throw covering their bodies. Willow has her back turned to the baby, a pillow set over her head as if trying to tune out the sound of midnight cries or coos, or maybe Chris’s early morning shower before he departed for New York. Willow breathes deeply, evidence of a deep sleep. I tiptoe across the room, cursing a cat who follows me in, scampering under the sofa bed for a place to hide. The drapes are drawn, keeping the outside world out, tiny bands of light sneaking in through the opening in the middle, lustrous early morning light tinged with pink and gold.

In her deep sleep, Willow fails to notice the way my feet tread lightly across the carpeted room, and in my mind I’m envisioning no Willow, no sleeper sofa.

Just a beautiful baby in a bassinet waiting for someone to arrive.

The baby’s eyes are wide-awake when I finally adjust to the darkness of the room and can see her clearly. She is staring with wonderment at the white ceiling, and when she sees me, she smiles. Her legs start kicking in excitement, her arms flailing wildly about. I slip my hands under the weight of her body and lift her from the bed. Willow lets out a sleepy sigh, but doesn’t open her eyes.

I press that baby to my chest, my lips to her head, and together we walk out of the room.

I settle into the rocking chair with the baby. “There now,” I utter aloud, swaying rhythmically with the baby on my lap. I count her fingers, I count her toes. I run my hand across her silken head and breathe in the silence of the room, silent save for the steady ticktock of a wooden wall clock, its distressed white finish and Roman numerals just barely visible in the light of the rising sun. Outside the sun begins its ascent over Lake Michigan, turning the east-facing sides of the buildings a golden hue. There are clouds in the sky, cottony clouds, in shades of silver and pink, a pale pink clutching the edges of the clouds. A flock of birds flies through the sky, sparrows I assume, and a mourning dove perches on the edge of the wooden balcony, staring in through the bay window, watching me. The baby and me. Its beady eyes stare, its small head tilting from side to side, side to side, asking a question only it knows. The street below is quiet, just the occasional early morning pedestrian headed to work or out for a jog. The city bus passes by, quickly, not bothering to stop at the vacant bus stops; taxis soar by without pause.

I press my bare feet to the hardwood floors and force the chair back and forth, back and forth, aware of the way the baby presses her face to my flannel pajamas, rummaging around for food, for a nipple from which to feed, like a hungry, suckling piglet pressing its way into its mother’s teat to drink.

I was a firm believer in breastfeeding Zoe when I still could. Chris and I never truly talked about it; it was something I planned to do. And Chris wasn’t about to argue; my breastfeeding Zoe meant there would be no midnight feedings for him, no hungry baby awakening him in the middle of the night. He could sleep the night clear through while Zoe and I sat together on a glider in her nursery for hours on end.

There were many benefits to breastfeeding, everything from financial benefits, to breast milk’s ability to fight disease, though Chris eyeballed me squeamishly whenever I nursed. But for me, it was also about convenience. It was far more convenient for those late-night feedings to simply place baby Zoe on my breast and let her eat to her heart’s content. There was no need to prepare bottles, to wash bottles and, more than anything, I felt an intimacy to my newborn, an indispensability that I haven’t felt from Zoe in many, many years now. She needed me. As she needed me to rock her to sleep, to change her diaper, but unlike those things, this—breastfeeding—was the one thing only I could provide for her. It was something only I could give.

I planned to nurse until she was a year old and then I planned to wean her from the breast.

But once I fell ill and caring for my own health became a priority, my plans changed. Zoe’s breastfeeding was quickly discontinued, and she was forced onto a formula-filled bottle, something that she didn’t take to well. There was a part of me half-certain that she, my baby, resented me for the sudden change, for the fact that I never asked her opinion before thrusting a silicone nipple in her mouth. She would scream when I did, refusing to latch on to the foreign object, refusing to drink the foreign milk. In time, she learned to adapt, of course, through trial and error, a half dozen types of bottles and nipples, a half dozen brands of formula until we found one she would consume, one which didn’t upset her stomach, one she didn’t refuse.

But Willow—I think, completely cognizant of the way the baby roots around in the pleats of my shirt—I’ve never seen Willow breastfeed.

Why, then, is the baby exploring the shirt of my flannel pajamas for a nipple, the agitation brimming in her tiny little body because she can’t make her way past the clear plastic buttons to find my breast.

But I don’t have the time to think it through, to come up with a list of sensible scenarios, like engorgement or an inadequate milk supply, because there she is, Willow, standing before me in the room. Her long hair sweeps across her face so that all I can see are her eyes—moody and mistrusting eyes, which fall on me like meteors from the sky. Eyes that make me suddenly wonder how virtuous this girl is, how trustworthy.