Whitmore,” she said, when she saw him.

“You shouldn’t be here.” “Of course I should,” Daniel said, and pulled a chair to her bedside.

“Maria.

Who is Noah?” She closed her eyes for a long moment, as though weighing something, some door she had kept shut for years and was deciding whether to open.

And then she opened it.

“My son,” she said.

“He’s seven.” And Daniel sat back in the plastic hospital chair, and felt, for the second time that night, the ground shift under a thing he had believed was solid.

Chapter 6 — The Woman He Never Knew