Chapter 32: One Hour

On Sunday, Greta searched him at the front door of the Wainright house.

She patted down his jacket, his belt and both ankles while two guards stood by.

"Arms out, Mr. Falk."

He held them out.

"Wider."

He held them wider.

"The judge said one hour," Greta said, and ran her hand down his ribs a little too hard. "I will be counting."

She had a watch on her wrist, and she tapped it.

Celia's hour had been that morning, and she had come out gray-faced and said nothing.

Molly waited in the car.

She had said she did not want to see the house.

Troy thought it was the other thing she did not want to see.

The nursery had a new crib, a steel one, bolted to the floor.

Judith sat in a high-backed chair by the window with a notebook open on her knee.

A nurse stood beside the door, and Giselle stood beside a tea tray at the far wall, with her hands folded.

In the middle of the carpet, in a clean yellow dress, sat Hazel.

She looked up.

Her whole face opened.

"Hi, baby girl," Troy said.

His voice was not steady.

He sat down on the carpet where he was, because walking toward her felt like too much.

Hazel rolled onto her knees and crawled to him across the rug, fast, with her hands slapping the floor.

She pulled herself up on his knee.

Her small fingers gripped his trouser leg, and the seam split.

Judith wrote something in her notebook.

Troy did not look at her.

He lifted Hazel into his lap, and she put her palm flat against his chest and patted it twice.

"Look what I brought," he said, and took a wooden block from his pocket.

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