Mrs. Maureen Scott.

Patrick’s mother. Of course. She was like my own mother. A card sender. When I was with Patrick, Maureen had sent countless cards for the smallest of reasons. Dear Patrick, Saskia and Jack, Thank you for the lovely evening on Saturday night. We thoroughly enjoyed Saskia’s “Thai Beef Salad.” It was delicious.

Why was she writing to me now? To tell me, enough was enough? You broke my grandson’s arm, you evil bitch?

I opened it. The pale purple stationery with a border of lavender sprigs looked familiar. She’d probably been using the same notepaper for years.

I read:

Dear Saskia,

Jack wanted to send you this “get well card” (he bought it himself with his own money) and I promised I would find your address and post it to you. Patrick doesn’t know he has written to you, so I would be very grateful (given the current circumstances) if you didn’t write back. I should have said this before, Saskia, but you were a wonderful mother to Jack, and as his grandmother, I should have done more to make sure you stayed in touch. I’m very sorry. I will always regret this. Jack has grown into a lovely young boy. He is a credit to you.

I hope and I pray that you can find a way to move on with your life now, and be happy. I know that’s what your own mum would have wanted.

With love,

Maureen

The card showed a picture of a giraffe sitting up in bed with a thermometer in its mouth. Jack had written:

Dear Saskia,

Get well soon. I’m OK. My cast comes off next week.

Dad won’t let me visit you. Sorry about that.

Love from Jack

P.S. I remember the cities we made out of Play-Doh. They were awesome.

P.P.S. Here is another lucky marble for you to make up for the one I lost.

At the bottom of the envelope was a marble.

I held it up to the light and studied the intricate, intertwined paint splashes of color, and my eyes blurred.

I cried for such a long time. There were no wrenching, painful sobs, just quiet, cleansing tears, like a long, soft rainfall on a Sunday afternoon.

When the tears finally stopped, I blew my nose and turned off the light, and I slept more deeply than I think I’d slept in years. I don’t think I dreamed at all. It was like I was an animal that had gone into hibernation for the winter. Waking up was like emerging from a deep, dark cave into the fresh spring air.

I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and smelled undercooked bacon and bad coffee. Sally, the wonderfully grumpy aide who brought in my breakfast most mornings, was standing at the end of my bed. She dumped the tray on my table with her usual ungracious clatter and raised her eyebrows at me.

“Sleep well?” she said.

“Wonderfully,” I said.

Chapter 27

Before meeting your baby it is impossible to know how profound the feeling of love is and how intense the anxious feelings about your baby’s survival and well-being can be.

—Baby Love, “Australia’s Baby-Care Classic,”

by Robin Barker

Yes, that is my nose, and yes, it’s very funny. Now could you focus?”

The baby let go of Ellen’s nose and placed her palm over Ellen’s mouth.

Ellen pretended to eat it. “Umm, umm.”

The baby grinned. She turned her head and fastened her mouth back around Ellen’s nipple, sucking with greedy concentration, one finger lifted in the air, as if to say: Hold that thought. I’ll be right back with you.

Ellen closed her eyes briefly as she felt the tingling warm rush of a thousand tiny magnets pulling down the milk. Six months ago she’d never felt this; now it was as familiar a sensation as a sneeze.

Except that every time, it still felt marginally extraordinary.

For a few minutes Grace fed, her tiny hand circling as if she were conducting a symphony. She tipped her head back and her eyelids fluttered as though the music was touching her soul.

“Where’s my little girl?”

At the sound of her father’s voice, the baby swung her head so fast in his direction she wrenched on Ellen’s nipple and droplets of milk flew.

“Hello, my little Gracie girl, hello, hello, hello!” Patrick crouched down on the floor next to where Ellen was sitting. The baby crowed and gurgled and wriggled in an ecstasy of love. Patrick held out his hands and looked up at Ellen for approval.

“It’s OK. She was just snacking really.”

Patrick took the baby into his arms and buried his face in her neck. “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a yummy, yummy baby.”

Ellen refastened her bra and the buttons of her shirt, watching Patrick.

“Good Lord, I’ve never seen such a besotted father,” Anne had said the previous night after watching him play with Grace. She sounded mildly disapproving, even cranky. Ellen wondered if it was regret that Ellen had missed out on a besotted daddy, or envy because Anne had been a single mother, or if she thought there was something unmanly or unseemly about Patrick’s behavior.

“Sorry.” Patrick stood up with the baby on his hip and kissed the top of Ellen’s head. “Hello, you.”

“Oh, yes, don’t mind me.” Ellen shrugged.

She didn’t think it was unmanly. She couldn’t get enough of seeing Patrick interact with Grace. The very first moment she’d been wheeled back into her hospital room and seen him cradling the new baby to his bare chest (the nurses had told him to give Grace skin-to-skin contact while Ellen was in recovery, and so he’d unbuttoned his shirt and tucked her up against his bare chest like a sleepy koala), she’d felt such a powerful rush of feeling—something like lust—except not. It was just like the breastfeeding, an entirely new sensation. She wondered if it was biology: the satisfaction of seeing your mate bond with your offspring, so you knew that he would be likely to stick around and keep clubbing lions and tigers for you. Or was it because she was identifying with Grace, and Patrick was filling Ellen’s repressed need for paternal love?