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Then he held out both hands.

I lifted Sparrow out of the carrier and handed her over. He settled her on his thigh with one arm around her middle and turned back to the monitors. The moving pictures caught her attention immediately. She stared at them, kicked both legs and reached for the nearest screen.

“She’s after your job.”

“Not qualified.” Moff caught her hand before it reached the keyboard and pulled her sock back over her heel. “Plans?”

“Mom-and-baby class, then the park. I’ve got rehearsal at two.”

“Robin?”

“Sleeping now. He’s got her later.”

“Quiet month,” he said.

I knew what that meant. Once a month Moff went through the accounts—my old email, my socials, and the calls and messages to my old cell number. The phone itself had stayed off since I called Robin from Fennimore, its battery removed. They kept the accounts and number active on purpose. A dead account tells you nothing. A live one tells you who’s trying to reach you, how often, and from where.

For the first four months it was busy. Then it thinned out. Now there was nothing, month after month.

“Nothing at all?”

“Nothing at all.”

I said thanks, settled Sparrow back into the carrier and went out onto the pier.

Back in March, Robin sat with me on the porch and told me about the messages in that careful voice he uses when he isn’t sure how I’ll react. There’s a lot of them, Wren. Not from him. From the women.

I never opened them. Moff reads them, logs them, files them, and I’ve never asked to see one. But I know what’s in them, because Robin told me once.

Are you okay?

Are you safe?

We miss you. Please just tell us you’re alive.

Not one from him. Not one about him.

Austen sent more than all the others put together.

I could have answered. I could have asked Moff to send four words—I’m alive. I’m okay.—and given four women I loved some peace. I didn’t.

They hadn’t done anything wrong. But Austen, Indira, Lilac and Bea belonged to the life I’d left, and Seb was at the center of it. If I opened the door to them, sooner or later his name would come through too, and I couldn’t hear it without being back in that common room.

So I said nothing for a year.

They had been good to me. That’s what made it worse. Dutch got Maya out of the room and ordered every man to turn his back. They did it without hesitation. Even then, with my body on that screen and Seb shouting at me, I saw that.

I looked at Dutch before I left. He was about to say something, but Seb got there first and told me to get out.

I’d already told Seb the truth. That’s us, Seb. He looked straight at me and chose the screen.

I’d have walked through fire for him. He knew that. I’d let him behind the mask, into every part of me, and when it came down to my word or a screen, my word meant nothing.

I already knew about the baby. There was a onesie on its way to the clubhouse with Daddy’s Little Bug stitched across the front. I’d ordered it to tell him. I could have told him that night. But he’d just played our private video for a room full of people and refused to believe me. I couldn’t tell him after that. Every time I thought about it later, I was back in that room.

❧

After mom-and-baby class and an hour at the park, I took Sparrow home to Robin. He’d slept off most of his night shift and already had a bottle warming when we arrived.