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She shook her head e at hiet out of here"

With a clatter she tossed the bowl into the sink and turned on the tap, violently pu the lever back and forth, to no avail "Godda water?"

Grey got to his feet She spun to face hier

"Don’t you understand? I can’t lose her again! I can’t!"

Did she ain"?

"We can’t stay" He took another cautious step, as if approaching a wary anian to spill down her cheeks "Why do you have to do this? Why?"

She lurched toward him, fists raised like haan to pu to break down a door But her attack wasn’t organized; it was an expression of pure panic, of the storain, Grey regained his balance and pulled her into hi her upper body and pinning her aresture was reflexive; he didn’t knohat else to do "Don’t say that," Lila pleaded, thrashing inside his grip "It isn’t true, it isn’t true" Then, with a rush of breath and a whiainst hiht have been a full minute they stayed that way, locked in an aard embrace Grey couldn’t have been more astonished-not by her violent reaction, which he could have foreseen, but by the ht she was! How different froed a woed anyone? Or even been touched by another person? He could feel the hard roundness of Lila’s belly pressed against hiht, and for the first time, the full implications of this fact dawned in his oneto have a baby

Grey relaxed his grip and backed away Lila was looking at the floor The brisk, officious woone; in her place stood a frail, diminished creature, al, Lawrence?" Her voice was very small

Grey nodded

"What did you do before?"

For a ; then he realized she ed "I mean, I was a janitor"

Lila considered his stateot me there," she said miserably She rubbed her nose with the back of her wrist "To tell you the truth, I don’t think I was anything at all"

Another silence descended, Lila staring at the floor, Grey wondering what she would next say Whatever it was, he sensed their survival depended on it

"I lost one before, you see," Lila said "A baby girl"

Grey waited

"Her heart, you understand," she said, and placed a hand against her chest "It was a proble in the quiet, Grey felt as if he’d known this about her all along Or, if not the thing itself, then the kind of thing It was as if he were looking at one of those pictures that made no sense when you saw it up close, but then you backed away and suddenly it did

"What was her name?" Grey asked

Lila raised her tear-streaked face For a moment she just looked at hi squint He wondered if he’dthis The question had just popped out

"Thank you, Lawrence Nobody ever asksit’s been"

"Why wouldn’t they?"

"I don’t know" Her shoulders lifted with a tiny shrug "I guess they think it’s bad luck or so"

"Not to me"

A brief silence passed Grey didn’t think he’d ever felt so awful for anybody in his life

"Eva," Lila said "My daughter was Eva"

They stood together in the presence of this naht was pressing down Grey realized it had begun to rain-a quiet, soaking, su the s

"I’m not really who you think I am," Grey confessed

"No?"

What did he want to tell her? The truth, surely, or some version of it, but in the last day and a half, the idea of truth sees coin

"It’s all right," Lila said "You don’t have to say anything Whoever you were before, it doesn’t ht I’ve hadsome troubles"

"So that would make you just like the rest of us, wouldn’t it? One more person with a secret" She looked away "That’s the worst part, really, when you think about it Try as you ht, nobody will ever truly knoho you are You’re just so else"

Grey nodded What was there to say?

"Promise me you won’t leave," Lila said "Whatever happens, don’t do that"

"Okay"

"You’ll look after me We’ll look after each other"

"I pro a weary breath, pushed her shoulders back "Well I guess I’d better turn in I expect you’ll want to be leaving first thing in theyou correctly"