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Henri holds the bundle out to me and I take another step back. “I’d better not.”

“Nonsense,” he replies. “She’s barely two kilos. I think you’ll manage.” He pushes her at me again so I really have no choice. I curve my arms beneath her inconsequential little body, holding her gingerly as a grenade I might drop, and as desperate to get rid of her as I would a grenade as well. I bounce her in my arms for a second or two and try to hand her back but he doesn’t take her. “I have to drive the doctor home. Can you watch her just until Marie is done getting Yvette cleaned up?”

My mouth opens to refuse but I can’t think of an excuse. They leave and I take a chair in the living room. Reluctantly, I pull back the blankets from her face, though I’d rather not see her. She has dark hair like Henri’s but otherwise I can’t tell which of them she resembles. Her mouth purses and makes a sucking motion. I find my eyes stinging as I watch her. I loathe Yvette, and I strongly suspect that this pregnancy was not an accident, on her end—but this baby is innocent and when she opens her tiny slits of eyes to look up at me, I see faith there. This baby trusts me to care for her, to keep her safe. In spite of all the evil things I’ve done, and wanted and thought, she believes I will keep her warm and safe and fed. And she is right—I would. Holding her reminds me that there is good inside of me along with the bad. That the good is capable of winning, and I want it to. That rage inside me has been satisfying at times, but ultimately, I’d rather feel peaceful. I’d rather be a person worth this tiny human’s faith.

When Henri returns, he takes the chair beside mine. “I’m sorry. I thought Marie would be out by now.”

I shake my head. “It’s fine.” I hand her back to him and the two of us stare at her. “She is what will make this all worthwhile, you know.”

He swallows, glancing from me to her. “I hope I’m able to believe that one day.”

“Can you hire a nurse to help you, for the next few weeks?” I ask. “Since she’s so small? If people in town ask where you got the money you can tell them I left it for you.”

He stills. “You’re not going to stay? I thought maybe this...I thought you might change your mind.”

I stare at my lap. “You have a family now. You are a family. My presence just makes things worse. But I’ll check on your daughter throughout her life, and make sure she has what she needs.”

His head hangs but he doesn’t argue with me. When he yawns a few minutes later, I take the baby from him and cradle her. It feels natural to me already.

“I want to keep this in my head forever,” he says, watching us. Our eyes hold. I want to hold it in my head too. This is what it would have been like to have a child with him.

Marie stumbles out of the bedroom just then, her clothes painted with blood and yawning. “How is my niece?” she asks, smiling down at the little face.

“Excellent,” I reply. “But getting hungry I think.”

Marie swoops her up with graceful efficiency. “Let’s go see your maman, lovely Cecelia.”

Henri’s brow shoots up. “What did you call her?” he asks.

Marie smiles knowingly. “Oh, the baby? Yes. Yvette has named her Cecelia.”

He and I stare at each other, dumbfounded as it all comes together. This tiny beautiful thing in Marie’s arms, this child who isn’t yet five pounds, is the woman who has saved me twice. And someday she’ll be the richest woman in France.

“Is it the same person?” Henri asks incredulously.

I never, in a million years, would have put it together before, but I know that it is. “She knew you. She knew me as Amelie. She knew about Marie and what we could do. Except I—I don’t understand. She knew where to look for me based on my stories. Like the hospital…she came to save me from it.”

“She wouldn’t have heard them from me,” he says quietly, placing his hand on my knee. “Which means you told them to her yourself.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible,” I whisper. “I’m leaving. I’ll be gone in a few hours.”

Marie stands, holding Cecelia, and her eyes go to Henri’s hand, which still rests on my knee. “Henri,” she says, “you should probably go see your wife. Take her the baby, will you?”

He looks at her blankly for a moment, as if he’d forgotten she was there, or forgotten, perhaps, that there was a wife in all this. And then he rises, gently fixing Cecelia’s blankets before he carries her away.

Marie takes his place on the couch. I expect to be chastised—I shouldn’t have left for Paris tonight, and Henri and I shouldn’t have been sitting the way we were. But instead, she squeezes my hand. “Don’t you see?” she asks. “Something must occur in the next two weeks that changes your relationship with Cecelia. Something that changes the course of your life and hers.”

“How is that possible?” I ask. “In two weeks she still won’t be talking. I’ll look out for her, Marie. You know I will. But from a distance. There’s nothing I’ll be willing to do for her in two weeks that I won’t be willing to do now.”

“Obviously there is, because two weeks somehow turns her into a person you know. A person you tell your stories to, who knows you loved her father and he loved you. And she’s not that to you yet.”

Marie has no idea what she’s asking. That staying here means feeling like an outsider while waiting on Yvette hand and foot, means watching as Henri becomes a family with someone other than me. “I can live without telling these stories, believe me.”

“You might live, but will she?” Marie asks. “Tell me something: if you return to your time, and there is no more Cecelia Boudon…if she is poor, or broken, or worse? If she’s dead, you can’t fix it. What then?”

I can’t imagine what difference two weeks could make. It’s not as if Cecelia and I will be having any life-changing heart-to-hearts during that time. But can I guarantee it won’t change things? No.

I sigh. “Fine. I’ll stay.”