I didn’t know what to say. The baby whimpered and made a coughing sound. I adjusted her hat and loosened the blanket around her neck. Her face was so tiny and squished. Her eyes were closed, but she frowned and fussed, as if angry at what we were doing, as if she knew I was out of my league.

“So this is that guy’s baby?” said Digger with a hint of hurt in his voice. “You went ahead with it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Obviously.” I felt myself getting defensive, because this was basically the reason we broke up. I turned to look out the rear window of the truck, partially defrosted. We were alone on the shoulder, snow falling all around us. Even in Minnesota, drivers knew to stay off the roads unless they really had to be somewhere.

Bouncing the baby lightly in my arms, I turned up the heater.

Digger turned it down.

“Hey,” I said, “I need to keep it warm in here.” I slid the baby’s little hand and wrist out and snipped off the bracelet. I rolled down the window to chuck the bracelet away, then quickly rolled it back up. The truck smelled like cigarettes, oil rags, and McDonald’s, but the heater worked. Digger sat with his head hanging down, hands on the steering wheel, like he was trying to concentrate.

“I thought the whole point was to give the baby to that couple—”

“—Hal and Ruth, yeah,” I said.

“I thought they’d take the baby home, and you’d get the money,” said Digger.

“Yeah,” I said, stroking her cheeks.

“Then why the fuck are we going up north with it? To, what, hide it in the woods?” he said, mocking me.

“She’s not an ‘it.’ Her name is Nell,” I said, gaining strength as he started criticizing me. Gaining strength as I remembered what it was like to be with him, as if the past ten months apart hadn’t happened. He was the same old Digger.

“Don’t you want the money?” he said, as if I were stupid. “I thought you wanted to go back to college?”

“I do,” I said, and that was true. “But when I saw her, and the way she looked at me, I just . . . couldn’t.”

Digger shook his head like I’d made the hugest mistake he’d ever seen. “Didn’t they already pay you some of the money?”

“Yeah.”

“How much?”

“Like half,” I said, but I didn’t want to tell him the exact amount, especially if he was gonna pick it apart.

“Half? So this is, what, some kind of ass-backward attempt at a ransom? You trying to get them to pay you even more?” said Digger, as if that would be a possibility.

“No!” I said. “I just need more time with her, and they weren’t gonna let me.”

“Did you even ask?”

“Yes, I asked Hal,” I said.