Chapter 5: Sixty-One People

Kate's flat is above the flower shop on Fulton Street, and it smells like eucalyptus and wet stems.

By evening the crib stood in the corner of her living room, between a fiddle-leaf fig and a bookcase of seed catalogs.

Ben had put it together in no time, and then he had put his forehead against the headboard and stood there for a while.

"I'm okay," he said, when Kate asked. "I just didn't expect to be a rumor today."

He went home to his husband with a bag of Kate's leftover scones.

I sat on the couch with June at my chest and my phone in my free hand.

I was still a member of Ferris Family and Friends. Nobody had removed me.

I read all seven comments again. Then I scrolled down to the ones that had come in after the driveway.

Judith had posted again at noon.

Lydia has taken the baby and the furniture to her sister's. Please keep her in your prayers. She is not well.

There were forty-eight hearts under it and a long thread.

Daniel's cousin wrote, Praying for you both.

Someone from the church wrote, We have a casserole ready for Daniel.

A woman I had met twice wrote, Is it true she cleaned out the whole house? Poor Daniel.

Nobody had written a word about me.

A private message popped up at the top of the screen.

It was from Daniel's aunt, his late father's sister. She was seventy and sold pies at the farmers' market.