And then there were others like me whose faces were as blank as the walls. What were they doing here? Were they new? Old? Trying to become members? I’d expected the others, but I hadn’t expected so many normal-looking people. Most of them had jobs too. Like real jobs in the community. Yesterday I’d spoken with two lawyers and one of the chemical engineers down at Sumner. They’d been taking classes and attending gatherings for months. Their families had recently started coming with them, and they loved it too. I had to remember to get them to sign a release today. Leo would kill me if I didn’t. He wanted to use one of the lawyers’ statements from yesterday. What had he said?

Oh yeah, “We are a community that feeds each other’s souls.” It was a great line. I couldn’t disagree with him on that, but it was useless unless he gave me permission to use it. He probably would. Most people loved seeing their name in print.

Someone cleared their throat next to me. A guy with half his face covered in tattoos. He looked irritated, like it’d been a while since he’d been trying to get my attention. He handed me a stack of papers.

“Take one and pass it on,” he said.

So much for everyone being nice and friendly. I fumbled to grab a paper, realizing there were multiple papers stapled together, and it was a packet I was supposed to be taking. I took mine, placed it on top of my notebook, and passed the stack to the next person in line.

I stared at the heading on the paper:

Are You Happy?

NINE

ABBI

NOW

Mom scurried to the car, ducking her head and trying to keep Shiloh covered with a blanket in case any media had sneaked to the private entrance at the back of the hospital. She opened the back door and jumped inside, clutching Shiloh against her chest. Dad hurried behind her and motioned to the car seat he’d bought last night.

“Do you remember how to use it?”

She acted like she hadn’t heard him. She was doing that thing where she went far away somewhere. She couldn’t hear you when she was there and definitely didn’t know what was going on around her. Yesterday one of the nurses had missed her vein when she had been switching her IV, sending blood spurting from Mom’s arm, and Mom hadn’t even flinched.

“Kate, you have to put the baby in the car seat,” Dad said tenderly. “Here, let me help you. These things are so hard to mess with. They always have been. Remember how frustrated you used to get with Abbi’s?” He moved toward her, and she jumped back, eyeing the car seat like it might attack Shiloh. She scrambled to the other side, crawling over the car seat in the middle and smacking her head on the roof. Her entire body trembled. Shiloh stirred within her arms. I held my breath, hoping she didn’t wake up. We were trying to keep her asleep for as long as possible. Nobody wanted to deal with a screaming baby in the car.