Chapter 12: Unfounded

The caseworker did not come to Beth's house.

She asked to meet us in the NICU, because she said she wanted to see the baby before she saw anything else.

She was a tired, kind woman in a cardigan, with a clipboard and a lanyard, and she took the visitor chair at the foot of Pip's incubator.

Ansel stood against the wall.

Beth stood next to me.

Nobody had to tell any of us what to do. We had planned it in Beth's kitchen at midnight, over cold casserole that we had decided, after all, to eat.

"I have to read you the allegation," the caseworker said. "Then I'll ask my questions."

I wrote on my whiteboard: GO AHEAD.

She read from the sheet in a flat voice.

An anonymous caller had said Elora Erickson ran into a road on purpose.

She had said the baby was in danger, and that the father had been under great strain.

She had said, near the end, "I'm a nurse at Ardmore, and I just think someone should look."

"That's almost word for word what she said on my porch," Beth said.

The caseworker looked up.

"I'm sorry?"

Beth held up her phone.

She played the recording of Janelle in her camel coat, saying, No judge gives a newborn to a mother who ran in front of a truck.

The caseworker listened with her pen still.

"Who is that?"

"The head nurse of this unit," said a voice behind us.

The night nurse had come in off her shift, still in her coat.

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