I glanced after Marshall, already disappearing into the stairwell on the other side. If I didn’t hurry, he’d clean up alone. More proof that I was a spoiled second wifey. Still, my middle child needed a moment.

“I think you’re cool,” I told her.

She snorted. “You’re my mom. The fact that you think I’m cool means I’m for sure a dork.”

“Well, cool is overrated. And sometimes it’s code for a little bit mean. But you? You’re smart. A good student. Super cute. Best of all, you have a kind heart.”

She shrugged it off, disappearing into her book again, but I could see her fighting a smile.

“Good talk,” I said to no one. But it had been.

Peyton went back to reading. Ten seconds later I could have set a bomb off beside her and she wouldn’t have heard it. I used to read like that when I was young. Before I was a mother. Now nothing took me that far from reality.

Except maybe watching my children perform. Ms. Taft had decided to run the Sandra Dee song one more time. It was time to clean up, but Marshall had told me I could stay. Anna-Claire came center and began, and the whole world fell away again. It was the same when I was at a robotics match and Peyton was at the controls. At ten weeks all Robert had to do was show his brand-new toothless smile to put me into a trance.

When she finished, I stood and gave her huge, silent thumbs-up, then patted Peyton’s oblivious knee. When I turned to go, I didn’t see Robert’s car seat.

But that wasn’t possible. It had been right there.

I hurried up the aisle, caught in a chilly disbelief. Maybe the seat was behind the chairs? But who had moved it? No one else had been up here. I tried to remember the last time I’d looked back to check on him. Not long. I didn’t think. But I’d been talking to Peyton, and then Anna-Claire had started singing—

This was scary, but at the same time part of me was sure there was an explanation. Maybe Greer had taken him back down to the greenroom. She was baby crazy.

I was at the row now, and he was gone. Just gone. So was his diaper bag. His empty bottle lay abandoned on the floor. Beside it was a single sheet of white paper, folded in half.

I picked it up, my hands visibly trembling. I opened it. A note. Handwritten in large block print.

If you ever want to see your baby again, GO HOME—