She slept through the cab ride. She slept through the triage check-in. She woke only when the resident took her temperature, and the cold thermometer touched her forehead; even then, she went back down within ninety seconds.
She sleeps now the way she slept then. Heavily. Her cheek against my shoulder. Brontos under her arm. The small purple snow boots are on her feet. I came into her room at 3:45 and lifted her in her dinosaur pajamas and a fleece blanket because I didn’t want to wake her up to dress her properly. The snow boots were on the floor next to her bed. Lex put them on her.
Lex put them on her.
Lex, who has not been allowed to touch my daughter, picked her up off the bed at 3:58 while I was zipping a duffel, in order to put her snow boots on her, because she had asked for them yesterday and he had registered that they were her chosenfootwear and already decided she was going to be wearing them when she left her home.
I don’t know what to do with the fact that he asked me before he picked her up. I do not know what to do with the fact that he did it gently, the way I have done it ten thousand times, hands cradling her head, her weight balanced on his forearm. Who knows whether someone taught him that or whether it is simply in him.
I push the thoughts away. I don’t want to think about this right now.
Petrov is in the front of the SUV. Lex is in the back with us. The car seat is not mine. It is not one I have ever seen. It is, somehow, the correct car seat for her age and weight, with the buckles set correctly. My only guess is that Lex Konstantinos has been preparing for his daughter’s arrival since he saw her age in a briefing folder seven hours ago. A fact I am not equipped to sit with at 4:00 AM with my daughter asleep in my lap. I’m just glad he had the thought.
"How long is the drive?" I ask.
"Eleven minutes."
Petrov drives like a man who has been driving in abnormal conditions for years. The SUV doesn’t feel fast, which is the point — Petrov has decided exactly how fast we are allowed to feel. He runs three yellow lights in a row. He turns left, takes a side street I have never been on, and the GPS mounted on the dashboard is dark. He doesn’t need it.
I look down at Nora. She’s still asleep. Brontos has slipped slightly. I adjust him under her arm. She makes a small, dissatisfied sound and resettles.
I look up. Lex is watching us.
Watching her. Then watching me watch her. He looks away when our eyes meet, which is not embarrassing. It is the discipline of a man who has decided he’s not going to look at his sleeping daughter in a way that is going to make this car ride harder than it needs to be.
"Lex," I say, very quietly so as not to wake Nora. "Thank you for the boots."
He doesn’t answer immediately. The streetlights are coming through the back-seat windows in slow rhythmic intervals. His face goes from light to dark, then back to light. The face is doing what it has been doing all night. Something underneath the not-doing-anything.
"You’re welcome," he says.
Eleven minutes on the dot, and we are at the destination.
? ? ?
The brownstone is on a quiet street in a section of Brookline I have driven past but never had any reason to enter. The street is lined with brick three-story houses. The brownstone Petrov turns the SUV into the drive, which is the third on the left. There is no sign that anyone lives in it. There is no sign that anyone has lived in it for a long time, which I guess is the point.
Petrov parks in a small, attached garage that closes behind us. Lex gets out first. Lex unloads the duffel. Lex carries the duffel up four steps to a door that doesn’t have a number. He unlocks it. He stands aside and waits for me.
I get out with Nora. I follow him.
Inside is a beautiful foyer,with wood floors. A coat closet. A staircase. Beyond the foyer, a kitchen on the right and a livingroom on the left. The kitchen has been recently stocked. There are bananas in a wooden bowl on the island. There is a plastic plate with cartoon dinosaurs on it on the counter, the kind of plate sold at Target for under five dollars. I know because Nora has the same plates at home. She’ll be happy about that.
I look at Lex. "When did you do all this?"
"Yesterday afternoon. Petrov stocked the kitchen."
"You bought a dinosaur plate."
"I asked Petrov to. I told him a small girl was coming. He said he had three nieces."
I turn my eyes away from the dinosaur plate again because if I look at the dinosaur plate again, I am going to start crying.
"Where do we sleep?”
"You and Nora are in the upstairs bedroom. There is one bedroom on this floor. I will be in it. There is a bathroom between the two bedrooms, and the door to the upstairs bedroom can be locked from inside."
"Locked from inside? Why?"
