“It’s a girl,” the nurse breathed, and laid the small, writhing, brand-new weight of her on my chest.

Camden looked at his daughter.

He did not reach for her.

He did not lean down.

He checked his watch, and said, “I’m going to take Noelle home,” and the heavy doors swung shut behind the two of them.

I looked down at the tiny face against my collarbone — at a person whose own father had cut away half her name before she had drawn a full breath — and I found that while my hand was shaking, my eyes were completely dry.

Somewhere in the roaring quiet after that door closed, grief finished, and something colder and far more precise took its place.