It was just after six. I was still in my robe, hair half-clipped up, standing there with my coffee cooling in one hand.
I’d opened the door because someone had rung the bell once—quick and sharp, the way people do when they don’t want to be caught waiting.
There was a baby on my porch.
Not a doll, not my imagination playing tricks on me. A real baby, tiny and pink, blinking up at me.
She was wrapped in a worn denim jacket.
My knees nearly buckled. I knew that jacket.
I had bought it for my daughter, Jennifer, when she was fifteen. She’d rolled her eyes and said, “Mom, it’s not vintage if it still smells like somebody else’s perfume.”
I set my coffee down so fast it splashed across the floorboards. “Oh my God.”
The baby moved one hand free. I crouched, touched her cheek with two fingers, then slid my hand to her chest just to feel it rise.
She was warm and quiet.
