Chapter 17: Carol Goes First

Carol stood up with my daughter in her arms.

For one terrible second I thought she would walk out of the house with her.

Then she kissed the baby's forehead and laid her back in my lap.

"Keep the cake," she said. "It's good for three days."

She picked up the white envelope from the table and put it in her purse.

At the kitchen door she turned and gave me the sweetest smile of my life.

"I only ever wanted what was best for you, sweetheart."

The front door closed behind her.

I sat with my daughter against my chest until Colter tore off his headphones in the office and came through the hall at a run.

"I got all of it," he said. "Annabel. Every word."

"She saw the pen."

"She saw it and she still said it."

"Why would she do that?"

He looked at the lemon cake on the counter.

"Because she's already decided what she's going to do about it," he said.

I thought he was being dramatic.

On Monday morning, I found out he wasn't.

A woman in a county badge rang the green doorbell at nine.

She had a clipboard, flat shoes and the tired face of someone who had done this a thousand times.

"Ms. Eccleston? I'm with county child welfare. We've received a report about your daughter."

My knees nearly went.

Colter was at my shoulder before I could speak.

"Come in," he said. "Please. Everything you want to see is open."

She walked through the house with her clipboard.

She looked in the pantry and the refrigerator.

She opened the bassinet drawers and counted the cans of fortified formula, every one of them written on my tab.

She weighed my daughter on the little scale from the clinic and wrote a number down.

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