And then there’s a sound in the hallway, footsteps that are loud and impatient, and I curse Jennifer, sneaking into my building again when someone was coming or going, not even bothering, this time, to buzz the intercom or call my cell. Trespassing, I think, wondering where I’ve left my Swiss Army knife.

I lie on the couch, with my black crepe dress pulled down to my waist, and Juliet, floundering like a fish out of water, on my chest, about to scream.

There’s no time to escape into the recesses of my bedroom for a place to hide before Juliet lets out a bloodcurdling scream and the front door flings open, and I see him, standing on the other side of the wooden door, staring at my attire, the black dress, the streaks of makeup dried to my skin.

His mouth formed in the perfect loop, his eyebrows raised in question.

His hair stands on end, in a jumble, as my heart beats fast, the room spinning laps around me. Juliet is screaming into my ear, her fitful body becoming hard to hold.

Not Jennifer at all.

But Chris.

WILLOW

That bus dropped us off in Chicago, the baby and me. Ruby, I reminded myself as I stepped out of the station and onto a bustling city street. It was cold outside, and windy. The Windy City, I called to mind, thinking of those days in the Omaha library with Matthew, looking up Chicago in the pages of the books.

I’d never seen anything like Chicago in my whole entire life. There were people everywhere. Cars and buses, buildings that soared into the clouds. Skyscrapers, I told myself, knowing now where they got that name. I turned and over my shoulder I saw it: a building with antennas that scraped the sky. It had to be a hundred floors or more, that building, twice as high—three times as high!—as any of those buildings in Omaha had been.

It didn’t take long to figure out I had nowhere to go. People stared at me, and it wasn’t a stare that was kind or concerned, but mean, judgmental, uncaring. I hid at first, the baby and me, in whatever dark alley we could find, leaned up against mildewed brick buildings, beside doors that were locked and barred. There were smelly garbage bins and Dumpsters down those alleys, and sometimes there were rats. I spent my days sitting on concrete—wet from the rain—staring up at the steel grating of the fire escapes. And hiding. I was certain they were coming for us, that Paul and Lily Zeeger were coming, that Joseph was coming. But it occurred to me then, after a day or two, that with all those people there in Chicago, there was no way they were ever gonna find me, no way at all.

And Joseph, well, Joseph was still dead.

And then, when I wasn’t worrying about the Zeegers coming for me, or Joseph, I was worrying about other stuff: what to eat and where to sleep, for the money Matthew had given me was all but gone. It was cold out there, cold during the day, cold during the night, the wind making it hard sometimes to walk in a straight line. It took me only a night, maybe two, to figure out how I’d have to forage in the garbage for food, after restaurants tossed their leftovers in the trash at closing time. I’d hover in the alley where they couldn’t see—just waiting, begging the baby to keep quiet—and then I’d pick through the Dumpster for something to eat. I saved whatever money I had left for the baby, for Ruby, for her bottles of formula.

I was scared, for about a million and one reasons, but the thing that scared me the most was that something might happen to that baby, something bad. I didn’t want to hurt her. I was only doing what needed to be done, I reminded myself time and again when the baby spent the night in a fuss, screaming till she cried herself to sleep.

I liked Chicago, I did. I liked the buildings and the anonymity of it, the fact that no one in the world was going to find me there, in the Windy City. But it was the train that delighted me the most, that train that soared over the city streets, and then down, down, down underground. I spent nearly all my money on one of those train passes, so that Ruby and I could ride the train as much as we pleased. The “L” I heard someone or other call it, and I had to remind myself “L” when my brain started mixing it up with every other letter of the alphabet: R, P, Q. When the day was cold or rainy, or we were otherwise bored, we’d climb on the train, the baby and me, and ride.

I realized quickly that there was a library there along the brown line of that train. It said so right on the map: Library. I was pretty sure it was an omen, a sign.

I climbed up the steps to the train platform one cold, rainy April day after we’d been in the city a week, maybe two. I had that baby tucked up inside my coat to keep her dry and warm. And we waited there, on that platform, beside men and women with too-big umbrellas and their briefcases and bags. They stared, they pointed fingers, they whispered. About the baby. About me. I looked away, pretended not to notice, letting my hair fall into my eyes so I couldn’t see the way they stared, the way they pointed.

The first train that came, it was too crowded. I didn’t like the crowds, being so close to strangers that I could smell their perfume, their shampoo; being so close that they could smell my stench, days upon days of body odor and sweat, of the sour smell of spoiled milk and seafood that drifted from the garbage by which we slept, enfolding the baby and me in a noxious stench.

And so I told the baby we’d wait, we’d wait for another one. And I stood there, watching as everyone else climbed on board, not a single one of them paying me the time of day.

But then I saw it: a woman hesitated a split second before boarding that train, the only person in the whole entire city of Chicago who’d ever hesitated for me. But then she, too, climbed on board that train and out the window she stared, at the baby and me, though I looked away, my eyes like stone, pretending that I couldn’t see.

That next brown line train that came by, I got on, being hurled through Chicago and toward the library, a great big redbrick building in the heart of the city, its green roof spotted with winged creatures that kept watch over me. But I wasn’t scared.

I didn’t think I’d ever see that woman again.

But then I did.

CHRIS

I’m utterly speechless, my mouth hanging open, my tongue unable to produce words. Heidi lays on her back on the living room sofa, completely topless, some black dress I’ve never seen before pushed down beneath her chest. Her hair is in shambles, some kind of updo that has since come undone. Makeup dribbles down her face: dark eyeliner I’ve never seen my wife wear, dark lipstick that’s smeared everywhere. The baby is screaming, out of control, and I have to remind myself that Heidi would never hurt that baby.

Heidi loves babies.

And yet I’m not so sure.

I glance around our home, taking in the emptiness, entirely aware that the door to my office—to Willow’s aka Claire’s—room is sealed shut. “Heidi,” I say then as I cautiously let myself into my own home and close the door, “where is Willow?”

I whisper in case Claire is there, hiding behind the closed door with a knife. I tell myself that Claire has done this, that Claire has rendered my wife topless, the baby frantic. And yet there are no restraints, no belts or cuffs binding Heidi to the couch.

My words come out unsteady, without rhythm. I don’t even know how they manage to emerge. My throat is dry, like sand; my tongue feels like it’s grown to two times its size. An image of Cassidy Knudsen half-naked haunts me, alternating places with an image of a man and a woman stabbed to death in their bed.

“Heidi,” I say again, and I see then, the way that she presses that baby to her chest. Heidi would never hurt that baby, I remind myself again, paralyzed by the scene before me, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. And then it comes to me, all of a sudden, what it is that Heidi’s trying to do. My God!