"Take your time." Her voice softened. "I'll come back in a few minutes to take you down."
The door clicked shut behind her.
I was alone again.
I'd heard something once. Years ago. Something Anya had told me, from one of those books she was always reading—the ones about past lives and soul contracts and the things we choose before we're born.
Children pick their parents, she'd said. They look down from wherever souls wait, and they decide. Whether to come. Whether to stay. Whether the life waiting for them is one worth living.
Maybe it was true, I wondered.
Maybe my baby had looked down and seen me. Seen the mess I'd made of my life. Seen the father who didn't want it, the mother who couldn't protect it, the marriage built on contracts and conditions and clause seven, subsection B.
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