Page 80 of After Anna

“I never have. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t open it until I got you back in my life. I’ve never even gone in this box.”

“Aw.” Anna smiled softly.

“And now we get to do it together.” Maggie swallowed hard, unglued the back flap, and looked inside the envelope. There was a flattened C-shape of a brownish curl, and all of the memories came flooding back, like a wave of emotion. “Wow.”

“Let me see.”

Maggie felt herself choke up, but kept it together. “I remember that I used to play with that curl while you were nursing. I used to curl it around my finger.”

“I nursed?”

“Yes, for about three months.” Maggie shook the curl into her palm, then moved her hand into the waning sunlight, which caught the reddish highlights amid the light brown strands.

“So much red! I don’t have that much anymore, do I?”

“No, your hair’s browner now. Mine got darker, too, from when I was little.”

“Dad had a lot of red in his hair.”

“Yes, he did.” Maggie shook the curl back into the envelope, thinking back to the time she had first met Florian. His hair was the best thing about him. It took her a decade to learn that looks didn’t matter. The fact that Noah was handsome was just gravy. He was a good man, and he probably already felt lousy about the way he’d acted, which he should.

“What else is in there?” Anna peered into the box, plucked out the cotton knit hat they’d given her in the hospital, and popped it on her head. “Cute?”

“Very!” Anna put the hat back in the box, and they went through the pink card that had been on Anna’s bassinet, an unofficial birth certificate with her footprint, a cottony-white receiving blanket, and an old color photograph of Maggie as a young mother, sitting with a happy infant Anna in her lap, the both of them facing the camera.

Maggie felt a warm rush of love, showing the photograph to Anna. “And here we are.”

“Aww. Who took the picture? Dad?”

“No, Kathy.”

“I’d like to meet her.”

“You will.” Maggie smiled. “She’s your godmother.”

Anna eyed the picture. “I look more like you than Dad.”

“Yes, you do.” Maggie smiled, returning her attention to the photo. The resemblance between mother and daughter was unmistakable, in the dimples and the grin, which was happy with a side order of goofy.

“It was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was, and that’s the time that we lost.” Maggie put the photo in the box, replaced the lid, and looked directly at Anna. “And that’s why your being here means so much to me. I prayed you would come back in my life and you have. So don’t worry about any of this fussing with Noah, okay?”

“Okay.” Anna nodded, with a shaky smile.

Maggie patted the box. “This is where we started. And this is where we belong. Together.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

Noah, After

TRIAL, DAY 5

Noah waited on the witness stand while Thomas, Linda, and Judge Gardner were still conferring. He retreated to his memories, mentally escaping the courtroom. Even bad memories were better than a murder trial, if you were the defendant.

Noah was thinking back to the night of the Range Rover fight, after his talk with Caleb. Noah had put Caleb to bed while Maggie was in their bedroom with Anna. He had gone back downstairs to clean up and by the time he’d gotten upstairs, Maggie had gone to bed, facing away from him.

Noah had undressed and slipped into his side of the bed, linking his fingers across his chest like a dead man, which was how he’d felt. Maggie hadn’t been sleeping, but she’d been waiting for him to talk first, playing marital chicken.