Marge leaned in. “You never know what’s going to help us find her or the baby.”

Paula shuddered at the word baby. “Gosh, that’s just terrible!”

“How’d you meet Marie?”

“She trained me at Sun Valley Pres. I was an OB/neonate nurse for a year before I switched to Peds. Like I told your partner, I love the kids. And so did Marie. I couldn’t imagine Marie ever hurting a kid. She just couldn’t!”

“Who said she’s hurting a kid?”

“Well, she wouldn’t do that to a mother. I know Marie, and she likes the new moms, too.”

“How did you and Marie become good friends?” Marge said. “From what I hear, Marie isn’t sociable.”

“No, she’s not sociable, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t nice. Parties just aren’t her thing. What we used to do is just sit and talk after shift, you know? She’d make a cup of coffee….” Paula appeared lost in thought. “We’d just talk. I was going through a lot of problems with my ex-boyfriend…commitment problems. So what else is new, right?”

Marge nodded understandingly, although commitment was the last thing she wanted out of life. Pete seemed happy remarried. But Pete seemed happy before. “So you and Marie talked about your boyfriend?”

“Yes. Marie was very helpful. Not that we didn’t disagree about things. We had some pretty intense discussions about God.”

“God?”

“Yeah, Marie was into Jesus. She especially liked the parable about the prodigal son.”

“The sinner repenting.”

“Yep. She used to say everyone has skeletons in their closet.”

“Marie mention hers?”

“Not really. Marie really didn’t talk much about her personal life. Too busy talking about my problems.” Paula’s focus fell back to the mug. “Marie could be understanding even if…” She wiped her eyes with her napkin. “Excuse me, this is hard.”

“Take your time.”

“I got pregnant by my ex-boyfriend….” She sniffed, and her voice became small. “He wasn’t my ex back then. That’s when the commitment issue really came out, you know?”

Marge nodded.

“He didn’t want marriage.” She sniffed again. “He didn’t want a baby. He said he was too young, although he was in his last year of medical school. He could have…anyway, when I told him I was going to keep the baby, he had a fit. He told me don’t expect help from him…he was just too young to be tied down. Then two months later…he…he got engaged to a classmate.” She started to cry. “It’s not that he didn’t want commitment, he just didn’t want me.”

She buried her face in her napkin. Marge waited for the weeping to stop, wondering if Paula’s story was relevant. Finally, the nurse dried her eyes.

“Marie was very helpful.”

“A shoulder to cry on?”