“Come in,” she managed. “Please.”
Good Boy moved with her, nose lifting curiously as Karen crossed the threshold. Micah followed, one hand resting briefly on the doorframe as he passed—not touching her, just close. She felt it anyway.
In the living room, Karen set the carrier on the sofa and knelt beside it. “I’ll take her out for you. Then I’d like you to hold her.”
Naomi nodded.
Karen lifted the baby free in one smooth motion and held her out. “Here she is.”
Naomi’s arms came up before she thought about it—muscle memory from instincts she didn’t know she had.
As the baby settled against her chest, her breath caught.
The child was warm. Impossibly warm, and light, and alive, her tiny heartbeat pulsing against Naomi’s hand. The small mouth pursed and relaxed, pursed and relaxed, chasing something in sleep.
Something cracked open in Naomi’s chest. Not pain or fear. Something softer—the kind of ache that hope left behind when you’d spent too long without it.
Good Boy lifted his head from the hearth rug and watched them, tail sweeping the floor in a slow, steady arc.
“Sissy never picked a name,” Karen said.
Naomi looked down at the baby. At the tiny face, peaceful and unhurried, completely unaware of the storm that had brought her here. A child who hadn’t chosen any of this—not the father, not the mother, not the broken world that had handed her over before she was even a week old.
The word materialized without effort, like it had been waiting just beneath the surface all along.
“Grace,” Naomi murmured. “I’m going to call her Grace.”
Karen looked up. “Grace?”
“That’s what this is, isn’t it? For her. For all of us.” Naomi’s voice came out quiet but steady. “Being here. Being safe. Having someone. That’s grace.”
Karen was quiet a moment. Then she nodded, her expression warming. “I like it.”
Grace let out the smallest sound—barely a sigh—and curled closer.
While Karen went through the paperwork, the family settled around the room. Good Boy pressed his nose against Naomi’s knee, tail wagging once, slow and certain, like he’d already decided where he belonged.
After Naomi signed the last page, Karen gathered her things. “Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Naomi said. “Really.”
As the room went quiet following Karen’s departure, Naomi looked down at Grace—still warm, still impossibly trusting of a world that had given her no reason to be. A question had been sitting in her chest since last night.
She looked up at Micah and asked the one question she wasn’t sure she wanted answered: “Does Richard know I have her?”
