Marisol Ortega found her there ten minutes later. Marisol had been on the floor for eighteen years, longer than anyone, and she had the face of a woman who had seen everything twice. She looked at Renée and shut the door behind her and sat down on the box of IV tubing across from her, so that their knees almost touched.
"Okay," Marisol said. "Who died?"
"Nobody."
"Then who do I have to kill?"
Renée laughed, wet and helpless. Then she told her. Not everything. The cardigan, the shoe, the three visits, the kiss. Ivy on the stairs. The not-bothering-Mommy secret. Marisol listened without interrupting, her arms folded over her ample chest, her mouth getting tighter and tighter.
"The ex-fiancée," Marisol said when she was done. "The high school girlfriend. With the dying daddy."
"Yes."
"While you were here at three in the morning catching other people's babies."
"Yes."
"And his mama gave her the number."
"Yes."