‘Sorry, Sisters, but Claire Milo don’t want this child. Please find a home for her. We (the mother’s friends) can be contacted if needs be at the Sylvester club in NY, but please don’t ever take that as licence to come around here and try to persuade Miss Milo against her decision. It was hard made but she stands by it and won’t be moved.’ He stopped reading, looked at his wife cradling the baby.

Jo looked up at Dave. ‘We can’t keep her though. Can we?’

Dave gave it some thought. ‘You think they’d try to take the baby off us? The Sisters? Or that this Milo woman might change her mind, want the baby back?’

‘Both those things,’ said Jo, cuddling the infant.

‘The Sisters don’t know we got her. No one saw me pick her up, I swear. They don’t even know she exists. And this note seems pretty definite about how the woman feels. And she don’t know where we are, either.’

‘People change, though.’ Jo was looking fretful. This was marvellous, unbelievable. But it could all be snatched away in an instant. ‘The mother could change her mind tomorrow, call the police, anything could happen. You were working at the convent. It wouldn’t take them long to put things together, would it?’

‘All right.’ Dave was biting his lip. He’d found the child on the steps of the convent, it was almost like God had left her there for him to stumble over. This was a gift, a miracle, and they couldn’t just pass it by, could they?

Jo was shaking her head. ‘We have to take her back,’ she said, but her eyes were locked on to the baby, and she was smiling. ‘We have to.’

‘There’s another way. A safer way,’ said Dave.

‘What?’ Jo was looking up at him now, and there was wild hope in her eyes.

‘Look. We move, yeah?’ Dave was nodding, thinking fast. ‘Your sister down in Baton Rouge.’

‘Virginia? You mean Ginny?’ Jo was glancing between his face and the baby’s like a metronome. She was holding a baby in her arms, a real live baby, and hardly registering what he was saying. She’d longed for this, and now it had been dropped into her life.

‘How many sisters you got? Just the one, yeah. Honey.’ He touched her hair in a warm caress. ‘This is what we’ve always wanted and we can have it. If you’re nervous of the cops, worried about her changing her mind, then let’s just go. Right now. Let’s pack up and skedaddle. Nothing holding us here, that’s for sure. We can stay with Ginny until we sort ourselves out. What do you say?’