The Good Father. Diane Chamberlain

they checked her out right after she was born and she was fine, which was a miracle because of the medications I’d been on when I got pregnant with her. Most of the time, I could push that baby out of my mind. Now, suddenly, she was trying to get in.

      Dale laughed a little. “You’re spending way too much time with Alissa and Hannah,” he said. “Seriously, though,” he added quickly, “you’ve been such a help to her. She’s really … She’s not adjusting that well to motherhood, is she.”

      “I think her hormones are still screwed up,” I said. “Once she’s back in school with her friends, she’ll probably be fine.” I didn’t really believe it. Alissa was right to be nervous about her future. None of her friends would have to run home after school to take care of a baby.

      “You’re going to be such a great mother,” he said and I was glad it was so dark because I didn’t want him to see how I cringed. I’d told him I might never be able to have children. I’d been honest about it. The antirejection meds made it extremely risky. My doctor had said having children was “unlikely but not impossible” for me, and Dale seemed to have completely wiped the “unlikely” part of that sentence from his mind. “We’ll find a way,” he’d said, and I’d let it go, like I always let go of anything that might lead to conflict. I wanted children, but I would have been happy adopting. I knew from the way Dale and his parents reacted when Alissa said she wanted to place her baby up for adoption that it wasn’t an idea they’d take to easily.

      I thought I heard the baby again, way in the distance, even though I was now wide-awake. I leaned away from Dale to turn on the light on my night table. The darkness was getting to me.