I went upstairs to the nursery at the back of the townhouse.

The small yellow nightlight cast long shadows across the white floorboards.

I stood between the two cribs and reached out my hand.

My fingers touched the cool cotton sheet on Lily’s mattress.

The room smelled of lavender disinfectant and clean cotton, but no one stirred under the knitted blankets.

I sat down on the floor between the white rails, staring at the empty cribs in the quiet glow of the nightlight.

By ten o’clock on the morning of February fifteenth, the air in the forensic accounting office on Lexington Avenue smelled of cold drip coffee and fresh laser toner.