Natalie told us about her upcoming concert. Amelia listened for a few minutes, then checked her phone, sent a text, then checked her phone again.

“Delta,” she said, “I totally forgot that I have to drop by one of our sites in Lower Manhattan. Would you mind hanging here with Natalie while I’m gone? Only if it’s convenient, of course.”

Once I’d processed her words, I felt a dull aching sensation in my chest, similar to how I’d felt when she asked me to photograph the town house. Amelia had invited me to her house for this reason specifically. Maybe she’d gone running with me for this reason too. Perhaps she could have left Natalie alone for a couple of hours. Or she could have had Natalie join her. But it was so much simpler to invite me over as the family friend who had nothing better to do.

While Amelia was out and Natalie was practicing the cello, I let myself into the garden apartment, having observed that no one was home. I moved a stack of books from the bedroom to the living room, opened the closet doors, and left a small puddle in the bedroom. Before leaving, I studied the photographs on Gwen’s bedside table again. The picture of her in the Bahamas had probably been taken two years earlier, judging from the clothing the women were wearing and the quality of the photo. It was clear that Amelia and Fritz didn’t think much of Gwen’s personality. Yet, somehow, this woman had ten friends who wanted to spend their vacation with her in the Bahamas. What did she do to make them like her?

I returned to the main house before Natalie noticed I was gone. When Amelia came home in the late afternoon, I gathered my belongings. “Oh, don’t leave yet,” she said, her voice rising and falling in a lovely cadence. “I was hoping we’d have some time together.”

I felt flushed and warm with pleasure. She had the capacity to alter the chemistry of the air around her instantaneously, as if a drug was pumped into the room when she entered and I was breathing it in involuntarily. I found it almost impossible to go against her will.

She poured us each a cup of coffee, and we sat together at the dining table. She spoke softly, but intently. “The thing is … I thought that Fritz and I were on the same page about having a baby.”

The sound of Natalie playing a sonata on her cello drifted down the stairs.

I pressed the nails of my right hand into my left palm. “I understand how stressful it is,” I said. “I’d like to help you in any way I can.”

“You know, when a birth mother chooses us,” she said, “we can’t hesitate.”

I took a sip of coffee, choosing my words carefully. “I understand.”