Gresham. Her boss Judith lives ten minutes from the complex, more like eight at this time of night. But of course she can’t get out of bed and go get her—this is the difference between owning the agency and working there for eleven dollars an hour, no health benefits.
Chloe sighs and hangs up.
“Work?” Dan asks softly, and Chloe thinks from his tone that they are ready to make up.
“Yeah, a birth mother is bleeding, needs a ride to Good Sam.” She is poised to leave, her hand on the doorjamb. She tries again. “Earlier, I was only saying there are things involved in planning a wedding, things you have to book in advance.”
There is a long silence. From the hallway light shining on Dan’s perfect profile, she can see his eyes are closed, but it is a feigned sleep face. She continues, “Look, babe, you’re the one who mentioned getting married in the first place. I never brought it up, you asked me. All I need to know is when.”
“Honestly, Chlo”—he doesn’t open his eyes, addressing the ceiling—“the way you’re acting about this makes me sorry I asked.”
She leaves the room without answering, letting his own words echo in the silence of her wake. It is a little trick she learned from him.
4
In the Middle of the Night
PAUL
It’s 3:23 a.m., and Paul Nova is driving himself to the emergency room with blood running down his arm. Goddamn cat. Eva had reminded him about the insulin shot when she got up to pee around two, and Henry, sleeping on the dryer in the basement, would rather she hadn’t remembered. The scratches on his forearm were nothing new (“You’ve got to wrap him in his blanket like I do!” Eva always said), but the bite along the back of his hand had split the skin open to his knuckles. Paul had tried to butterfly it one-handed; no luck.
Now at Good Samaritan’s ER, Paul sits in the empty waiting room with a battered two-year-old Car and Driver magazine. He looks up when the automatic door opens and a couple comes in. The guy is short, a Ducati cap riding high on his scowling forehead. He has his arm protectively around the back of a woman with stringy hair, her shirt hitching up over a tight, mounded stomach to expose her bulging belly button. Paul thinks how now that Eva is finally pregnant, he sees watermelon bellies everywhere. Like when they were shopping for a new car, suddenly every third vehicle on the road seemed to be a Volvo Cross Country. The pregnant couple hangs back, and Paul has returned to his magazine when he hears a familiar voice.
“Hi, I’m Chloe Pinter. I’m a social worker for the Chosen Child, and my client here, Mandy, is thirty-five weeks and having some bleeding.”
“Well, then I need to speak to her,” the admitting nurse says, and beckons for the woman to come forward. The man behind her seems attached; they move toward the triage counter in perfect unison, shuffling as she hunches over slightly. Chloe steps back, hand possessively gripping a manila folder. Paul notices her blush, embarrassment maybe from having been dismissed, but it makes her look lovely, fresh from bed. There is still the slightest crease from a pillow on her cheek, the strap of her overalls slipping off her shoulders as she takes the seat closest to the admitting desk.
“Hey, stranger,” Paul says as he slips into the seat next to hers.
“Paul Nova! Oh, my goodness, how are you?” Chloe side-hugs him, awkward with them both sitting down. Though she keeps her head turned slightly, listening to the conversation between Mandy and the nurse, Paul swears she looks genuinely excited to see him.
“I’m good. You look great for the middle of the night.”
“Ha! Thanks. Is Eva here? Baby time?”
“No, we’ve got about two weeks to go. Attacked.” He holds up his bandaged hand. “Vicious house cat.”
“Ah.” Chloe nods.
There is a pause in the conversation, and they can both hear Mandy answer the intake nurse softly, “Yes, we’re giving her up.”
Chloe frowns slightly, whispers to Paul, “You’re supposed to say, ‘We’ve chosen a family for her’ or ‘We’re making an adoption plan for her,’ or ‘placing her for adoption.’ You’re not supposed to say ‘giving her up’ anymore.”
“It’s all about the semantics, huh?”
“Well, for the baby. Who would want to know that they were ‘given away’?”
“I see your point.”
“I should go call the adoptive family,” Chloe says, standing up. She stretches her arms over