Chapter 22: Girl

Rowan's POV

Brooke put her daughter in my arms without asking, because she said I was hovering.

"Support the head," she said. "Hold her higher."

"I know how. I photograph newborns."

"You photograph them on a beanbag with a hat on. This one's real."

The baby was five days old, wrapped in a yellow blanket from Fran's cedar chest.

One tiny fist was pressed against her cheek.

She opened her eyes and looked at me with great suspicion.

Fran stood in her kitchen doorway with a dish towel over her shoulder.

"She hasn't got a name yet," she told me. "Brooke can't decide, so I've been calling her Gravy."

"She ruined my roux by being born," Brooke said. "It stuck."

"It's a perfectly good name," said Fran.

I sat down on the sofa, very carefully, with the baby on my forearm.

Leah sat down next to me and put her head on my shoulder.

I stayed very still so that neither of them would move.

She had not forgiven Brooke.

She had said so twice that week, once to Fran and once to the ceiling.

But she had come to Racine on Sunday with a bag of diapers and a casserole.

Now she was drinking a cup of Brooke's terrible tea.

That was something.

"She's got his chin," Brooke said, very low, to nobody. "I can't help it."

"She's got your temper," said Leah. "Look at that frown."

Brooke laughed, and then she put her hand over her mouth and cried a little.