Chapter 12: The Bassinet Card

"Ask me," Cordelia said again.

My mouth was dry as paper.

"What did you do?"

She did not look away.

"I was awake at three in the morning because I could not stop looking at you."

She meant me.

I understood that slowly, one syllable at a time.

"I had fed you at eleven and at two."

"You had a small bruise under the left ear and a crease in your upper lip."

"I walked down in my gown to look at you through the glass one more time."

Her voice was low and entirely level.

It was the voice of a woman reading her own sentence into a record.

"I saw Priscilla at the bassinets."

"I was forty feet away in the dark."

"I saw her hands move, and I saw something flash."

"I saw her bend over the beds, and then I saw her leave."

"I did not understand it."

"I stood in the corridor with my hand on the wall."

Annalise made a small sound.

"She left by the stairs."

"I went into the nursery."

"And?" I said.

"Both of them asleep."

"Two bare ankles."

"No bands."

"I looked at your faces and I could not tell you apart."

She swallowed.

"Newborns look alike in the dark."

"There were cards on the bassinets, Kenworthy and Odom."

"They were exactly where they had been that evening."

I heard my mother breathe in beside me.

"There was a scale on the counter," Cordelia said.

"A small steel one, for the night weights."

"You were seven pounds and two ounces."

"Priscilla's girl was six and eight."

"I stood in front of that scale for what the clock said was three minutes."

"Why didn't you weigh us?" I said.

I was surprised at how calm I was.

It was the court voice, the one that does not break while the world breaks.

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