Breathing but cold. Yes, an actual baby. No, no one else is here except my daughter and a dog.
The dog stayed with them the whole time.
Not underfoot, not frantic anymore, but planted on rigid legs beside the basket as if refusing to let the child out of its sight. When Ethan reached in to check the infant’s neck for warmth and free its face from the blanket, the shepherd watched closely and then settled, almost imperceptibly. Ellie, still frightened but now overwhelmed by a different kind of alarm, edged closer despite his instructions.
“Is that a baby?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“Yes,” Ethan said.
“A real baby?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Why is she in the leaves?”
There was no answer he could give a six-year-old in that moment, so he said the only true thing available. “I don’t know.”