Chapter 4: Thirty Weeks

The waiting room at Lowcountry Women's Health smelled like lemon cleaner and cold coffee.

I sat in the corner chair at 8:50 on Tuesday morning in jeans and a gray T-shirt.

Six women sat around me, most of them pregnant, all of them very polite.

Myra stood in the doorway with her phone in her hand and a clipboard from the shop under her arm.

She'd told her crew she was picking up a part.

"Don't look at me," she muttered as she sat down by the window. "I'm furniture."

"You're a witness."

"I'm furniture with a camera."

At nine, the door opened and Brynn came in.

She wore a loose blue dress and flat shoes, and her hair was braided over one shoulder.

I had loved that braid for two years.

She saw me and stopped so fast her hand went to her belly.

For one second her whole face was just the face I remembered, scared and sorry.

Then it closed.

"I'll call the front desk," she said, turning.

"Sit down, Brynn."

I didn't say it loud.

"I'm not going to touch you. I'm not going to raise my voice. I have one question, and then I leave."

The receptionist half stood behind her glass.

A woman beside me lowered her magazine.

Brynn looked around the room.

Six women watched her.

She sat down on the nearest chair, because it is hard to walk out of a room that's looking at you.

"Ask," she said.

"Who mailed the letter?"

"I did."

She said it fast.

I turned the envelope over in my hand.

"Where did you drop it?"

"At the post office on Boundary Street."

"You mailed a letter from me to you."

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