"Why?"
She looked at the dark softbox, at the white bench, at the girl in the blue sweater on the monitor across the room, still holding the bundle, still looking down.
"Because I'm a coward," she said. "That's the short answer. The long answer is worse."
* * *
The visit had been on a Sunday afternoon, a year and two days after the hearing. Natalie had taken the bus down from Fort Collins, where she had re-enrolled at Colorado State that spring, and then a second bus, and then walked six blocks in the heat carrying a gift bag with a stuffed rabbit in it that had cost her a day's tips from the restaurant where she waited tables.
The narrow brick house in Baker had balloons tied to the porch rail. There were people inside, more people than she had expected: Ruth's sister and her husband, Martin's mother, a couple of teachers from Ruth's school, a neighbor with twin toddlers. Ruth met her at the door and hugged her for a long time, and said, I'm so glad, I'm so glad you came, and Natalie stood inside the hug with her arms at her sides and the gift bag bumping against her leg.
"Everyone was kind," she said. "That was the thing. Everyone was so kind. Ruth introduced me as Claire's birth mother, just like that, like it was a normal thing to be, and everyone shook my hand and said how wonderful it was that I was there. And Martin played Happy Birthday on the kitchen piano, and they put Claire in a high chair with a cupcake, and she put both hands in it. She had all this dark hair. It curled at the back. And she had my mother's chin. I hadn't expected that. My mother's chin, on this baby in a stranger's kitchen."