And it went on. Weights, names, nappies per day. Who else in their group had given birth, when and how. Bottle feeding, breastfeeding, night-time routines. Where to find the best organic cotton baby clothes. Are you reading bedtime stories yet? Apparently, it’s good for them—we used to read to my bump. Us too, how strange. The talk went on, and Lauren found that she needed this. People with some of the same concerns that she had. Details that almost nobody else would have found interesting in the slightest, the mundane, tedious minutiae, given a new significance in their post-birth world, where each choice they made, however small, seemed life-alteringly crucial.

They ate cake and drank coffee and laughed, until eventually it was time to go. Rosa left first, and Cindy soon after. Lauren checked the boys’ nappies (no need to change—a welcome blessing) and packed up her stuff, wheeled the stroller to the river path and found to her surprise that she didn’t want to go back just yet, to her safe place, her fortress. Now that she was out in the world she wanted to stay out a little longer. She turned upstream and began walking. I’ll just go a little way, she thought. It’s such a lovely day.

There was a clearing a short distance upriver, where the path followed the water around the edge but the grass was crisscrossed with desire lines. Lauren followed the meandering path, and halfway around she was overcome with the need to sit down and rest. She felt weary, her legs heavy, the caffeine and sugar she’d consumed burning up and crashing, leaving her headachy and weak. Just into the woods on the other side of the clearing she knew there was a secluded bench and she headed for it, parking the twins to one side, sinking down gratefully, closing her eyes.

*   *   *

Her mouth was furred, tongue dry. A chill drew itself up her arms. Her eyes flew open. She was alone. The stroller was nowhere.

Lauren stood and looked both ways. Nothing but trees, and the river. Where was the stroller? Where were her babies? Gone. They’d been taken. While she was asleep.

She shouted out, a guttural mashing of vowels, sprinted one way, tripped on a root and fell, a crunching of bone or cartilage in her wrist as her hands shot out to break the fall. No matter; she couldn’t feel her body, only a terrible absence, the babies like limbs ripped from her, missing parts, a wrongness so intense she wanted to hurt herself, to tear at her hair and skin. She ran back the other way to the clearing and screamed her children’s names. Startled birds took off in a grey cloud of squawks and flapping wings from the giant silver pine that stood by the water.

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN