Chapter 16: Lydia's Earrings

Godfrey kept the first term. He told Lydia that night, with the file open on his lap, and then he went to the mill.

At eleven I climbed the stairs and found my bedroom door standing open.

It had been Lydia's room for twenty-four years, and the lamp was on.

She sat on the window seat with the folder across her knees and her shoes off.

"You can have the room," she said. "I only came to read the thing."

"Stay as long as you want."

"I read the lab report." She turned a page without looking at it. "The two cribs. Mercy General. It says the nurse was on a double shift."

"I know."

"It's a very ordinary mistake, isn't it? That's what I keep thinking. Nobody planned it."

"No."

"She did, though." Lydia tapped the margin, the line in blue ink. "She planned this part."

I stood in the doorway and waited, because I had learned to wait for the tears.

They came, and they came differently.

She didn't lower her lashes or press a hand to her chest or look at me to see whether I was watching.

Her face simply went, and she put the back of her wrist against her mouth.

I had a pack of tissues in the green bag, with the receipt book.

I didn't take it out. If I handed her one now she would take it for a trick, and she would be right.

"What's the date on the page?" she said, when she could.

"March. Six years ago."

"My birthday is in April." She reached up to her ear. "I turned eighteen, and she gave me these."

She took out the left earring and then the right, and set them in her palm.

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