Lily wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “What if his father is bad?”
Lena had asked herself the same question. Wealth did not make a person good. Desperation did not make a person bad. She knew that better than anyone.
“I don’t know what kind of man he is,” Lena said. “But I saw his face on that television. He looked like someone whose heart had been torn out.”
June hugged Noah’s blanket. “Maybe he’s pretending.”
“Maybe,” Lena admitted. “That’s why we’re going to the police station. Not straight to his house. The police can make sure everything is right.”
Lily understood before June did. Her small shoulders folded inward, as if she were trying to protect her heart from the blow.
“When?”
Lena looked at Noah. He was waking now, blinking up at her as if she were morning itself.
“Tomorrow.”
June sobbed so hard Noah began to cry too. Lily reached for him, but Lena held him close and let all three children cry against her.
That night, nobody slept much.
Lena washed Noah’s clothes twice in the basin and hung them near the stove. Lily folded the gray blanket he had been found in, even though it was ugly and stained, because “it came with him.” June drew a picture on a scrap of cardboard: two girls, one mother, one baby, and a house with a crooked roof. Above the baby she wrote N-O-A-H in uneven letters.
“Can he take this?” she asked.
Lena nodded, though she did not know if anyone in Grant Whitaker’s world would keep a cardboard drawing made by a poor child.
At dawn, Lena dressed the girls in their cleanest clothes. Lily wore a faded blue dress donated by a church basement. June wore a yellow sweater with sleeves too short for her wrists. Lena put on the black pants she used for cleaning jobs and brushed her hair until it looked smooth.
Then she dressed Noah.
He looked healthier than the day they found him. His cheeks had filled out. His skin had warmed into a soft brown-pink glow. His eyes followed their voices. He was, in every visible way, a baby who had been loved.
Before they left, June kissed his forehead.
“Don’t forget me,” she whispered.
Lily touched his tiny hand. “If you get scared, remember the song.”
Noah stared up at them, solemn and trusting.
The walk to the police station took forty minutes. Every step felt wrong and right at the same time. Lena carried Noah. Lily held June’s hand. June cried quietly, wiping her cheeks whenever a car passed because she did not want strangers to see.
Inside the station, the front desk officer looked tired until Lena said, “I think I have the missing Whitaker baby.”
Then everything moved quickly.
An older detective named Marcus Bell brought them into a private room. He had kind eyes and a voice trained not to frighten children.
“You found him?” he asked.
“My daughters did,” Lena said.
Detective Bell looked at Lily and June. “Can you tell me where?”
Lily sat straighter. “Behind McKinley’s Market. In the alley. He was behind cardboard boxes.”
“He was cold,” June added. “But he stopped crying when Lily held him.”
Detective Bell wrote everything down. He asked dates, times, details. Lena told him about the hospital bracelet. Lily produced it carefully from her pocket. The detective’s expression changed when he saw the partial name.
N. WHIT—
“This is important,” he said.
Lena also handed him the gray blanket. As she did, a small piece of cream-colored fabric slipped from one fold and fell to the floor.
Lily picked it up. “That was stuck in there.”
Detective Bell took it with gloved fingers. It looked like torn silk, embroidered with two initials in pale gold thread.
M.V.
The detective’s face tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Did you notice this before?”
Lena shook her head. “No. We were focused on keeping him alive.”
Detective Bell nodded. “You did well.”
After a doctor examined Noah and declared him stable, the detective made the call. Lena sat with the twins in the private room, holding the baby one last time. June sang under her breath. Lily kept staring at the door.
When it opened, Grant Whitaker stepped inside.
He was taller than Lena expected, with dark hair threaded by a little gray and a face that looked as if sleep had become foreign to him. His suit was expensive, but wrinkled. His tie was crooked. He entered like a man prepared to meet monsters.
Then he saw Lena, two little girls, and his baby asleep in a poor woman’s arms.
The hardness went out of his face so suddenly Lena almost looked away.
“Noah,” he whispered.
