She saw exactly how it would unfold. Castigation from her father. Reminders from the President of her duty to the country. Suffocating guilt. By tomorrow evening, she’d be standing in a receiving line, her fingers aching from shaking another few hundred hands. And she had no one to blame but herself. What use was all her education, all her experience, if she couldn’t remember a simple thing like taking car keys out of an ignition?

Her throat closed tight. She wheezed as she tried to draw a breath.

“She’s heavy, and I’m not carrying her anymore!”

Nealy lifted her head and saw the young girl she’d been watching earlier set the baby she’d been carrying down on the sidewalk and yell at the Father of the Year, who was heading toward the yellow Winnebago.

“Suit yourself.” Although he wasn’t speaking loudly, he had a deep, carrying voice.

The girl didn’t move from the baby’s side, but neither did she pick her back up. The baby plopped forward on her knees as if to crawl, only to rebel at the midday heat coming from the sidewalk. She was a smart little critter, though, and she pushed herself up until only the minimal parts of her were in contact with the hot concrete—the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. With her bottom shoved high in the air, she began to move forward in a spider crawl.

The girl spun toward her father. “I mean it, Jorik! You’re acting like an asshole!” Nealy blinked at the girl’s crude language. “She’s not poison, you know. You could at least touch her.”

“You’re in charge of the baby, and I’m in charge of driving. Let’s go.” The man named Jorik might be a lousy father, but he was smart enough to have taken his keys with him, and now he shoved one of them in the lock on the door of the motor home.

The girl slammed her hands on her small hips. “This is bullshit.”

“Yeah, well, so is ninety percent of life.”

They were so involved in their argument that neither of them noticed the baby, who was slowly and fastidiously spider-crawling down off the curb into the parking lot.

Nealy rose automatically. A baby in danger. The one thing in life she hadn’t been able to escape since she was sixteen.

“Quit complaining and get inside,” the man growled.

“I’m not your slave! You’ve been bossing me around ever since yesterday, and I’m sick of it!”

An elderly couple in a Cadillac began to back out of a space much too near the crawling baby. Nealy shot forward, bent down, and snatched her up.

The kind of anger she couldn’t ever express in her real life erupted. “What kind of father are you?”