Nora’s POV
I was at the clinic by five-fifty. Two hours and forty minutes of sleep. Not ideal, but manageable—third year of residency had involved four consecutive days averaging three hours a night, leaving me with excellent suture technique and a relationship with coffee bordering on religious. I'd managed on considerably less.
The makeup took four minutes. Foundation, concealer under the eyes, done. I'd built this routine after Iris was born, when sleep was theoretical and the hospital required me to look like someone who had it together. I'd given the performance so many times it had stopped feeling like one—just what five-fifteen in the morning required.
Wren was already in the break room, hands around her cup and eyes on the door. She looked at me for exactly one second—the rea
