“Everything’s going great, Dr. Delaware. Matt’s talking. Really talking, not just the hello how are you we used to do.”

“That’s great, Holly.”

“Turns out what he needed was for me to tell him I valued what he had to say. Because his parents discouraged talking, his father actually used to say ‘Children should be seen, not heard.’ Can you believe that? Anyway, I did. Tell him. It just opened him up. Me, too. About my issues. And he was surprised to know how I felt about my mom. Which makes sense, I never talked about her until you led me in the right path. Anyway, Matt listened, nonjudgmental. Interested. Then he told me more about his childhood. Then we … everything kind of kicked up to a new level. I’m feeling in control, like I really own this pregnancy. Own my entire life.”

“That’s terrific, Holly.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Dr. Delaware.”

My line of work, things like praise from patients aren’t supposed to affect you because it’s all about healing them, not your ego.

To hell with that, I take what I can get. “I really appreciate your telling me, Holly.”

“Sure,” she said. “Do you have another second?”

“What’s up?”

“In terms of … what happened … to the baby. I’m assuming they haven’t found anything out? Because I did read about that other poor little thing, it made my heart ache, I cried, Dr. Delaware.”

“Sorry, Holly, no progress, yet.”

“Something so long ago, I imagine it would be difficult to solve. And this probably won’t help but that box—the blue hospital box? For some reason it bothered me. Someone putting a baby in something like that.”

Her voice caught. “This is going to sound weird but I’ve been going online and searching for something like it and finally I found it. A box just like it at a collectibles site called OldStuff.net. From the same hospital—Swedish, the seller calls it a bank box, for depositing money, she has others for sale, from other hospitals. I called her up and she told me back in the day they used metal boxes for extra security when they brought cash to the bank. Before the armored cars were safe enough so you could use bags.”

“Interesting.”

“Could it be important?”

“At this point, any information’s valuable.”

“Great, Dr. Delaware. Then I feel good about all the time I spent online. Bye.”

I logged onto the site. Identical blue box. No additional wisdom.

Robin knocked on my office door. “Going to keep working for a while?”

“Nah, let’s have some fun.”

She looked at the screen. I explained.

She said, “Never thought of hospitals as cash businesses.”

“Place was an abortion mill back when abortion was a felony. Illegal means high profit margins.”

I logged off.

She said, “Fun sounds okay.” Utter lack of conviction.