“No.” She wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. “It’s not.”
There’s not much to discuss after that. Caroline walks me to the door and we exchange awkward goodbyes. The whole time, I’m turning those syllables over in my head again and again.
Whatever it means, Susan Oglethorpe used her last conscious breath to say it. She wouldn’t have wasted that chance. She said it because someone, eventually, might come asking.
I press my palm against my breast pocket and feel the soft crease of the sonogram beneath the wool. Seventy hours to go, give or take.
Time, as Lukas pointed out, is not a luxury I have. But a key in my pocket is more than I had this morning.
I know bruises. I know how to get them, how to hide them, and how they look when they fade. So when I look at the thin mattress lyi
