Chapter 12: What She Held

I went to Chester Street the next morning with Trudy in her car seat and my father waiting in the truck.

He had offered to come in with me. I had told him no.

"If she hurts you," my father said, "I'll know in thirty seconds."

"She's not going to hurt me, Dad."

"Then why are you shaking?"

I was shaking because I was three days out of the hospital and I had not slept.

I was also shaking because I was about to meet my nephew.

The duplex was tidy and small, with a beige door and a pot of dying mums on the step.

I rang the bell. It took a long time.

Colette opened the door in sweatpants, with Arlen on her hip and her hair down.

She did not look surprised.

"Dalton told you," she said.

"Yes."

"Come in."

The front room smelled of laundry soap.

A playmat took up half the floor, with plastic keys and a stuffed giraffe.

I set Trudy's seat down beside the couch.

Then I looked at the baby on Colette's hip, and I stopped being able to do anything else.

He had my brother's chin.

He had sandy hair that stood up in the back, and grey-green eyes.

He had the same crooked half smile Jack used to give me when he wanted a favor.

How had I not seen it?

I had seen it. I had looked right at it on my father's porch and told myself half the world had a chin.

"Can I hold him?" I asked.

Colette's face did something complicated.

Then she handed him over without a word.

Arlen weighed more than Trudy did. He was warm and solid, and he smelled like baby shampoo.

He stared at me, and then he reached up and wrapped his whole fist around my finger.

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