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“But how—I mean, what do you know? How can you be sure? What about her vision? What about brain development? Respiratory problems?” Tess cast around, trying to remember all the other dire things she had read on the Internet. “Are you sure she’s okay?”

“Carla Scout is stable. She has no impairment that we can detect. But no, Tess, I don’t have a crystal ball. You want me to give you some kind of guarantee that everything will be fine, forever. I can’t do that. I can’t do that for any of our patients. Oh, I’m reasonably sure that your daughter has no lingering effects from the premature delivery. However, you and Crow—you and Crow most certainly do. And you’re going to have to get over it. Welcome to parenthood.”

They left the NICU, stunned with happiness. Tess realized that her hair was dirty and her clothes didn’t feel quite clean. When had she last bathed? Back when she was on bed rest she had promised herself that she would shower once, twice, three times a day when her confinement had passed. She had planned to exercise every day and indulge in wine again. Now she was thin, yet flabby, and couldn’t remember if she had even bothered to have a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve five days ago. Almost certainly not. Five days ago she had nothing to toast. Now she wanted to sing, skip through the busy hive that was Hopkins Hospital. Her daughter was coming home. She was going to get a chance to screw her up in all the normal ways.

“I guess we can get married now,” Crow said. “And finally have the baby shower that you kept vetoing.”

“Oh, right,” Tess said. She knew they had forgotten something. How funny to think she had once been obsessed about getting a ring from Crow. She had worried that he would skip out on her, that he wouldn’t be there if things got tough. Well, that was one worry gone. He had been a rock these past two months. She thought of the moment when Carole had stood over her and she told Crow she loved him, thinking she might never speak to him again. They were going to get married. They would fight. They would argue. They would be irritated with one another. That was how marriage worked. Except, possibly, for Mrs. Blossom. But Tess hoped she never forgot what it felt like to speak to him that night, Crow’s casual, “Love you, too.”

“You know,” she said now, her voice taking on a teasing tone that felt rusty and strange in her mouth. There had not been much teasing as of late. “You know, I didn’t think you were going to ask me to marry you. After all, you told Lloyd he could have the family heirloom.”

“One of the family heirlooms,” Crow said. “I held the better one back for you. You always forget—my family used to be well-to-do, Tess.”

“Used to be,” she said. “Now you’re poor like me.”

“Funny,” he said, “I feel pretty rich right now.”

They went for breakfast at a beloved restaurant, the Golden West, and ate their way across the world—sopapillas, pancakes, French toast, poached eggs in green curry, limeaide, and layer cake. We’ll bring Carla Scout here, Tess thought. We’ll take her everywhere. We won’t treat her as if she’s made out of glass. She’s sturdy, like her mother.

* * *

The combination wedding/baby shower was over, but some guests lingered. May could not get enough of Carla Scout. Tess thought this would scare her two mommies, but Liz explained it was a hardwired instinct, this love of infants, essential to their survival. “I heard it on NPR.” Tess’s parents were in the kitchen, washing up in a silence that she now knew was companionable, the soft embers of a romance kindled by her mother’s fastidious consumption of popcorn. Crow’s mother was admiring the sweaters and caps made by Mrs. Blossom; apparently, an older woman sitting on a bench, knitting, was the greatest cover ever in surveillance. Mrs. Blossom had broken three cases of insurance fraud since January and could barely keep up with all the requests for her services, now that Valentine’s Day was near.

But it was Whitney who outlasted all the other guests, cataloging the gifts that people had