Sissy quickly shook her head. “No, I love it. Grace. Like Grace Kelly?”
Naomi smiled faintly. “Something like that.”
Sissy stared at her baby. “She’s so beautiful.”
“She’s a good baby. Sleeps pretty well. Eats like a champ.”
Sissy nodded, her eyes never leaving Grace. “Thank you for taking care of her. I don’t know what I would have done if?—”
She stopped. Didn’t finish.
They sat in silence a moment, watching each other through the glass. Grace kicked her legs, oblivious to the emotional storm happening on the other side of the glass.
“I miss her so much,” Sissy whispered. “Every second. I just . . . I just want to hold her.”
“I know.”
“Does she know I love her?”
Naomi’s throat closed. “Yes. She knows. I tell her every day.”
They talked a few more minutes about surface things, safe things. How Grace liked the mobile over her bassinet. How she made funny faces when she yawned. How Naomi had started reading to her at night even though she was too young to understand.
But Naomi sensed her limited time slipping away.
She shifted in her seat, holding Grace a little tighter. “Sissy, on the phone when you called me . . . before we got cut off . . . you started to say something about Richard’s family. That they’re not good people. That they can’t be near Grace.”
The softness vanished from Sissy’s expression, replaced by something harder. Fearful.
“What did you mean?” Naomi pressed. “What do you know about them?”
Sissy glanced over her shoulder, as if checking to see if anyone was listening. Then she leaned closer to the glass, and her voice dropped. “They’re dangerous, Naomi. More than you know.”
Micah stood a few feet back from the partition, arms crossed as he watched the interaction.
He wasn’t part of this conversation, nor was he supposed to be. This was Naomi’s moment with Sissy—a mother seeing her child, a brief connection across an impossible divide.
But he couldn’t help but listen.
Sissy’s voice came through faintly, muffled by the plexiglass and the phone receiver pressed to Naomi’s ear. But the visitation room was small enough that if he focused, he could catch most of it.
What he heard made his jaw tighten.
“Richard’s family isn’t just about loyalty,” Sissy said. “Dale . . . he runs with people who don’t ask questions. They don’t follow rules. They’re . . . they’re not safe to be around.”
Naomi leaned closer to the glass. “What kind of people?”
“The kind who’d take a baby and not think twice about it. They won’t love her. They’lluseher.”
Micah’s hand curled into a fist at his side. Her words didn’t surprise him, but her confirmation made his adrenaline pump harder.
“What about Richard?” Naomi asked. “Is he a part of this?”
Excellent question.
Sissy hesitated long enough that Micah saw Naomi’s shoulders tense.
“Richard kept me separate from most of it,” Sissy finally said. “He didn’t tell me everything his family was involved in. But I heard things. Saw things. Dale would show up with bruises. With cash he shouldn’t have. And Richard’s mother, Linda, seemed like an expert at making problems go away.”
