Maternal Instincts Mysteries BUNDLE

Honestly, the only thing harder than cracking a tough murder case? Going into labor. Right now, a body's just been fished out of the San Francisco Bay, and my gut's telling me it might be my missing brother-in-law. Terrifying, right? Plus, with a baby on the way and a detective's badge calling my name, I'm tossing my old life for a new one—sleuthing between diaper changes.

My to-do list? It's wild:

1. Track down the killer.
2. Wrestle with this beast of a breast pump.
3. Steer clear of the grumpy detective.
4. Pick up pink paper for adorable birth announcements.
5. Did I mention tracking down a killer?

I’m Kate Connolly—your go-to gal balancing motherhood with hunting down murderers. In "Bundle of Trouble," my debut into the world of crime and cribs, I'm not just launching a series; I'm starting motherhood with a bang. Or is that the sound of a crabby, hungry baby? Either way, I’m on the case!

Described as "engaging" and a "charming debut thriller" by Publishers Weekly, and praised by Rhys Bowen for its realistic portrayal of a modern mom cum detective, this isn't just any cozy mystery. Think fast-paced, hilarious, and a crash course in multitasking. Dive into a world where solving crimes and changing diapers go hand in hand—no graphic scenes, just clean, family-friendly sleuthing.

Genre: A rapid, entertaining blend of culinary cozies, quirky cat mysteries, and women detectives with a knack for amateur sleuthing.

CHAPTER ONE

Labor

The phone rang, interrupting the last seconds of the 49ers game.
“Shoot,” Jim said. “Final play. Who’d be calling now?”
“Don’t know,” I said from my propped position on the couch.
I was on doctor’s orders for bed rest. My pregnancy had progressed with practically no hang-ups, except for the carpal tunnel and swollen feet, until one week before my due date when my blood pressure skyrocketed. Now, I was only allowed to be upright for a few minutes every couple of hours to accommodate the unavoidable mad dash to the bathroom.
“Everyone I know is watching the game. It’s gotta be for you,” Jim said, stretching his long legs onto the ottoman.
I struggled to lean forward and grab the cordless phone.
“Probably your mom,” he continued. "She probably called your cell and you didn't answer."
I nodded. Mom was checking in quite often now that the baby was two days overdue. An entire five minutes had passed since our last conversation.
I grabbed Jim's phone off the table. “Hello?”
A husky male voice said, “This is Nick Dowling . . .”
Ugh, a telemarketer.
“. . . from the San Francisco medical examiner’s office.”
I sat to attention. Jim glanced at me, frowning. He mouthed, “Who is it?” from across the room.
“Is this Mrs. Connolly?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Are you a relative of George Connolly?”
“He’s my brother-in-law.”
“Can you tell me the last time you saw him?”
My breath caught. “The last time we saw George?”
Jim stood at the mention of his brother’s name.
“Is he a transient, ma’am?” Dowling asked.
I felt the baby kick.
“Hold on a sec.” I held out the phone to Jim. “It’s the San Francisco medical examiner. He’s asking about George.”
Jim froze, let out a slight groan, then crossed to me and took the phone. “This is Jim Connolly.”
The baby kicked again. I switched positions. Standing at this point in the pregnancy was uncomfortable, but so was sitting or lying down for that matter. I got up and hobbled over to Jim, put my hands on his back and leaned in as close as my belly would allow, trying to overhear.
Why was the medical examiner calling about George?
“I don’t know where George is. I haven’t seen him for a few months.” Jim listened in silence. After a moment he said, “What was your name again? Uh-huh . . . What number are you at?” He scratched something on a scrap of paper then said, “I’ll have to get back to you.” He hung up and shoved the paper into his pocket.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Jim hugged me, his six-foot-two frame making me feel momentarily safe. “Nothing, honey.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he whispered into my hair.
I pulled away from Jim’s embrace and looked into his face. “What’s going on with George?”
Jim shrugged his shoulders and then turned to stare blankly at the TV. “We lost the game.”
“Jim, tell me what the medical examiner said.”
He grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose. “A body was found in the bay. It’s badly decomposed and unidentifiable.”
Panic rose in my chest. “What does that have to do with George?”
“They found his bags on the pier near where the body was recovered. They went through his stuff and got my number off an old cell phone bill. They want to know if George has any scars or anything on his body so they can . . .” His shoulders slumped. He shook his head and covered his face with his hands.
I waited for him to continue, the gravity of the situation sinking in. I felt a strong tightening in my abdomen. A Braxton Hicks?
Instead of speaking, Jim stood there, staring at our blank living room wall, which I’d been meaning to decorate since we’d moved in three years ago. He clenched his left hand, an expression somewhere between anger and astonishment on his face. He turned and made his way to the kitchen.
I followed. “Does he?”
Jim opened the refrigerator door and fished out a can of beer from the bottom shelf. “Does he what?” He tapped the side of the can, a gesture I had come to recognize as an itch to open it.
“Have any scars or . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence. A strange sensation struck me, as though the baby had flip-flopped. “Uh, Jim, I’m not sure about this, but I may have just had a contraction. A real one.”
I cupped my hands around the bottom of my belly. We both stared at it, expecting it to tell us something. Suddenly I felt a little pop from inside. Liquid trickled down my leg.
“I think my water just broke.”

<><><>

Jim expertly navigated the San Francisco streets as we made our way to California Pacific Hospital. Even as the contractions grew stronger, I couldn’t stop thinking about George.
Jim’s parents had died when he was starting college. George, his only brother, had merely been fourteen, still in high school. Their Uncle Roger had taken George in. George had lived rent-free for many years, too many years, never caring to get a job or make a living.
Jim and I often wondered if so much coddling had incapacitated George to the point that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stand on his own two feet. He was thirty-three now and always had an excuse for not holding a job. Apparently, everyone was out to get him, take advantage of him, “screw” him somehow. At least that’s the story we’d heard countless times.
The only thing George had going for him was his incredible charm. Although he was a total loser, you’d never know it to talk to him. He could converse with the best of them, disarming everyone with his piercing green eyes.
Uncle Roger had finally evicted George six months ago. There had been an unpleasant incident. Roger had been vague about it, only telling us that the sheriff had to physically remove George from his house. As far as we knew, George had been staying with friends since then.
I glanced at Jim. His face was unreadable, the excitement of the pending birth diluted by the phone call we had received.
I touched Jim’s leg. “Just because his bags were found at the pier doesn’t mean it’s him.”
Jim nodded.
“I mean, what did the guy say? The body was badly decomposed, right? How long would bags sit on a pier in San Francisco? Overnight?”
“Hard to say,” he muttered.
I rubbed his leg trying to reassure him. “I can’t believe any bag would last more than a couple days, max, before a transient, a kid, or someone else would swipe it.”
Jim shrugged and looked grim.
A transient? Why had the medical examiner asked that? George had always lived on the fringe, but homeless?
Please God, don’t let the baby be born on the same day we get bad news about George.
Bad news—what an understatement. How could this happen? I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer for George, Jim, and our baby.
I dug my to-do list out from the bottom of the hospital bag.

To Do (When Labor Starts):
1. Call Mom.
2. Remember to breathe.
3. Practice yoga.
4. Time contractions.
5. Think happy thoughts.
6. Relax.
7. Call Mom.

Oh, shoot! I’d forgotten to call Mom. I found my cell phone and pressed speed dial. No answer.
Hmmm? Nine P.M., where could she be?
I left a message on her machine and hung up.
I looked over the rest of the list and snorted. What kind of idealist had written this? Think happy thoughts? Remember to breathe?
I took a deep breath. My abdomen tightened, as though a vise were squeezing my belly. Was this only the beginning of labor? My jaw clenched as I doubled over. Jim glanced sideways at me.
He reached out for my hand. “Hang in there, honey, we’re almost at the hospital.”
The vise loosened and I felt almost normal for a moment.
I squeezed Jim’s hand. My husband, my best friend, and my rock. I had visualized this moment in my mind over and over. No matter what variation I gave it in my head, never in a million years could I have imagined the medical examiner calling us right before my going into labor and telling us what? That George was dead?
Before I could process the thought, another contraction overtook me, an undulating and rolling tightening, causing me to grip both my belly and Jim’s hand.
When my best friend, Paula, had given birth, she was surrounded mostly by women. Me, her mother, her sister, and of course, her husband, David. All the women were supportive and whispered words of encouragement while David huddled in the corner of the room, watching TV. When Paula told him she needed him, he’d put the TV on mute.
When I’d recounted the story for Jim, he’d laughed and said, “Oh, honey, David can be kind of a dunce. He doesn’t know what to do.”
Another vise grip brought me back to the present. Could I do this without drugs? I held my breath. Urgh! Remember to breathe.
I crumpled the to-do list in my hand.
Bring on the drugs.

CHAPTER TWO

Delivery

After checking into the
hospital and spending several hours in “observation,” we were finally moved to
our own labor and delivery room.

“When can I get the
epidural?” I asked the nurse escorting us.

“I’ll call the
anesthesiologist now,” she said, leaving the room.

Jim plopped himself onto
the recliner in the corner and picked up the remote control.

“Hey, I’m having
contractions here . . . they’re starting to get strong. Aren’t you supposed to
be breathing with me?”

“Right,” he nodded,
flipping through the channels. “He he he, ha ha ha,” he said in an unconvincing
rendition of Lamaze breathing.

“Jim!”

“Hmmm?”

“I need your help now.”

His eyebrows furrowed.
“No TV?”

“Get me the epi . . .
oooh.”

He pressed the mute button.
I sighed and gave in to the contractions.

<><><> 

Another hour passed
before the anesthesiologist walked in. I was horrified to see that he looked
all of about seventeen.

“Sorry to make you
wait,” he said. “There was an emergency C-section.”

“I’m just glad you’re
here now,” Jim said.

The anesthesiologist
laughed. “How are we doing?”

“She’s doing great,
really great,” Jim said.

I would have told him to
shut up, but that would have taken more energy than I had. Was this teeny
bopper qualified to put a fifteen-inch needle in my spine? What exactly could
go wrong with the epidural? I was about to chicken out when the nurse rushed
in.

“Oh, here you are,” she
said to the anesthesiologist. “Let’s go, before she’s too far along.”

Before I could back out,
my torso and legs were blissfully numb.

The nurse placed a metal
contraption, resembling a suction cup, on my belly and studied a monitor. “Do
you feel anything?”

“Nope.”

“Good, because that was
a big contraction.”

I smiled. “I didn’t feel
a thing.”

The anesthesiologist
nodded as he left the room. The nurse advised us to get some rest. Jim returned
to the recliner and put the volume back up on the TV. I glanced at the clock: 3
A.M. already. Where was my mother?

My thoughts drifted back
to George. What had his bags been doing on the pier? An image of a swollen
corpse with a John Doe tag on its foot crept into my mind. I shook my head
trying to dissociate the image from George and willed myself to think sweet, pink,
baby thoughts.

I scratched my thigh to
double-check the effectiveness of the epidural.

During my pregnancy, I
had heard dozens of horror stories about infants with umbilical cords wrapped
around their tiny necks, only to have the doctor push the infant’s head back
into the birth canal and perform an emergency C-section. In most of the stories
the poor mother had to go through the C-section without any anesthesia. At
least I’d already had the epidural.

At 7 A.M., the door to
the room opened and my mother appeared, dressed in jeans and sneakers, with
binoculars around her neck.

“How you doing?” she
asked cheerfully. Without waiting for a reply, she reached up and put two hands
on Jim’s shoulders pulling him down to her five-foot-two level to kiss his
cheeks. After which she handed him her purse and said, “I’m here now, Jim. You
can sleep.”

Jim smiled, clutched the
purse, and happily retreated to his cot. Mom had adopted Jim long ago, even
before we were married; it was a relationship Jim treasured since he had lost
his own parents so many years earlier.

Just seeing Mom relaxed
me. She placed her freezing hands on my face and kissed my cheeks. “Are you
running a fever?”

“No. Your hands are
cold. Where have you been? You look like a tourist,” I joked.

“What do you mean?”

I indicated the
binoculars.

“Well, I want pictures
of my first grandchild!”

From Jim’s corner came a
snorted laugh, the kind that comes out through your nose when you’re trying to
suppress it. I laughed freely.

“What?” Mother demanded.

“They’re binoculars,”
Jim said.

Mother glanced down at
her chest.

“Oh, dear! I meant to
grab the camera.”

Jim relaxed, lying back
on the cot.

Mom stroked my hair,
then leaned over and kissed my forehead.

“You’re frowning,” she
said.

“I’m worried about the
baby. I’m worried about George.” I looked over at Jim. His eyes filled with
tears.

“George?” Mom turned to
look at Jim. Jim covered his face with his hands.

Mom clucked. “Let’s
start with the baby. Why are you worried?”

I shook my head and took
a deep breath. “Don’t know. Nervous, maybe.”

Mom patted my hand.
“Well, that’s normal. Everything is going to be fine. When did your labor
start?”

“Around nine last night.
Didn’t you get our messages? Jim must have called at least three times. Where
were you?”

Mom settled herself in
the chair next to my bed. “I was at Sylvia’s. She had a dinner party. There was
a lady there who wanted to take home some leftover crackers. Can you imagine?
They had sat out all night on an hors d’oeuvres plate. And she wanted to take
them home!”

Mom knew me too well.
She was making small talk, trying to distract me from thinking thoughts full of
doom and gloom. It was working. I was actually laughing.

I peered over at Jim.
His eyes were closed, a grimace on his face. He wasn’t listening to Mom. He was
stressed out. Mom followed my gaze.

“Now, what’s happened
with George?”

Jim flinched. “Let’s not
go there, Mom. We got a phone call, right, Kate? Just a call—”

I clutched Mom’s hand.
“Not just a call! It was a call from the medical examiner. They found a body in
the bay and George’s bags on the pier.”

Mom eyes turned into
saucers and she gasped.

“We don’t really know
anything yet,” Jim said. “Let’s not get all melodramatic.”

Mom and I exchanged
looks. “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.” She gave my hand a squeeze, then
released it and folded her hands into her lap.

An awkward silence
descended over us. Just then the nurse slipped into the room. “Don’t mind me,”
she said. “I want to see how far along we are.”

Jim watched the nurse,
his brow creased in concern. I tried to remain calm, my attention returning to
the beeping monitor reporting the baby’s heart rate.

“Oh, goodness, the
baby’s practically here,” the nurse announced.

I sat up a little. Mom
clapped her hands in childish delight and Jim crossed the room to stand next to
me.

“I’ll call your doctor,”
the nurse said, turning to leave.

Mom started to follow
her. “I’ll be right back. I just need to feed my parking meter.”

The nurse spun around
and stared at Mom. “Don’t leave now. You may miss the birth.”

“The baby’s coming that
fast?” Mom asked.

“I hope I can get the
doctor here in time,” the nurse said, rushing out.

“I hope I don’t get a
ticket,” Mom said.

I laughed. “Why didn’t
you park in the hospital parking lot?”

Mom shrugged. “There was
a spot in front.” She hurried across the room to the window, straining to get a
peek at her car.

Jim tried to hide the
smile that played on his lips. He leaned in close to me and whispered, “Here I
am worried about you, the baby, and my brother the screw-up, while I could be
worrying about really important stuff like getting a parking ticket.”

I giggled. “Or who took
home stale crackers from a party.”

Our eyes locked. Jim’s
face broke into a huge smile. “I love you, Kate.”

Mom came away from the
window. “No ticket yet, that I can see.”

Dr. Greene, my ob-gyn,
popped into the room, her brown hair held in place with two tortoiseshell
clips. She walked straight to my side, looking confident in her blue scrubs.
She smiled into my face. “How are you doing, Kate?”

“Okay, I guess. I don’t
feel a thing.”

She smiled wider.
“That’s the beauty of modern medicine. Just push when I tell you.”

After about twelve
minutes of pushing, Dr. Greene said the words I’ll never forget in all my life:
“Kate, reach down and grab your baby.”

What? She wanted me to
pull the baby out?

Startled by her words, I
instinctively reached down.

There she was. I grasped
my baby girl and pulled her to my chest.

I clutched her to me
with a desperation I had never felt before, trying to press her right into my
heart. Everyone else in the room seemed to fade into the background. My little
angel, my little love.

She was the most
beautiful thing in the world. Her round, pretty face was punctuated with a
button nose, and strawberry blond hair graced the top of her head. Dark blue
eyes peered at me, examining me with the wisdom of an old soul.

I realized Jim was
crying. He reached down and enveloped the baby and me in his arms and I forgave
him for muting the TV.

Out of the corner of my
eye, I saw Mom pull a hankie from her purse and wipe a tear. “Don’t worry,
darling, I’ve already memorized her face. No one’s switching her on us.”

CHAPTER THREE

Recovery/Discovery

We were moved to a
bright recovery room with a view of Saint Ignatius Church. Jim slouched in a
corner of the room on a hospital cot.

Mom had left for the
day, ticketless. It was only 5 P.M., but felt much later.

I held my sleeping
pumpernickel in my arms. I was told that newborns mainly sleep the first week.
It’s difficult to wake them even to nurse. Right now sleep sounded great. Jim
and I were exhausted.

“I wish I had space in
this stupid hospital bed for you,” I said, raising the bed slightly, then
lowering it again.

Who could ever get
comfortable in one of these?

“Don’t worry, honey, I’m
fine,” Jim grumbled from the corner cot.

“I miss you way over
there.”

He stood, stretched, and
hobbled over to me, his legs cramped from a long night of worry and catnapping
on a bad cot. “Let me hold her awhile.”

I handed the baby to
him. He settled himself against the windowsill and admired her. “Hope for the
next generation.”

I knew, of course, that
his remark was connected to George. But I didn’t have the energy to think about
that. “I need to sleep awhile, honey . . .”

I was already drifting
off when I felt the covers being tucked against my chin. “Take care of Laurie,”
I mumbled.

“Is that her name?”

“If you like it,” I
said, drifting to sleep.

“I do. Get some rest. I
promise to take good care of Laurie.”

<><><> 

I slept a fitful hour,
dreaming that I was swimming in the bay. In the dream, I became entangled with
a dead body that seemed to pull me under. As I freed myself from the corpse to
swim toward the surface, my ankle caught in the strap of a bag. The sound of
cries pierced the water. Suddenly, the water was full of bags and corpses. A
shrill cry startled me awake.

I gasped for air as I
awoke. Jim was standing over me with the baby in his arms. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, dumbfounded.

“Sorry, honey, I didn’t
mean to wake you. She’s crying and I don’t know what to do.” Jim handed me the
baby.

“I think she’s hungry,
or wet, or both.” I placed her near my breast. Instead of latching on, she only
cried louder, howling into my face. Jim laughed but I felt like crying, too.

“Maybe we should call
the nurse,” I said.

Before we could do
anything, a tall, slender African-American nurse glided into the room. Her name
tag read GISELLE.

“What is it now? Little
baby girl giving her parents a hard time? Hush now, they don’t know what
they’re doing, girl.” She rewrapped Laurie’s blanket around her.

In an instant the crying
stopped. Laurie gratefully curled into Giselle. Jim and I stared at her.

“Did anyone teach you
how to swaddle?” she asked.

“I thought she was
swaddled,” Jim replied.

“Not tight enough.
Babies like to be wrapped tight, like a little burrito, or they feel like
they’re falling.” She handed Laurie to Jim and turned to me. “How’s Mama?” she
asked, expertly taking my blood pressure and temperature.

“Now that you mention a
burrito, hungry.”

Giselle smiled.
“Dinner’s coming up. What about pain medication?”

“Yes, please,” Jim said.

<><><> 

When dinner was served,
I handed Laurie off to Giselle. Laurie would spend the night in the nursery
down the hall. Giselle would bring her in whenever she needed to nurse, which
felt like every couple of minutes but at the same time too long in between. I
missed Laurie terribly when she was out of the room, but felt exhausted when
she was brought in.

After gobbling down the
hospital dinner of cardboard sliced ham and runny applesauce, I eagerly turned
to chat with Jim. He was sacked out on the cot in the corner.

I shifted to the edge of
the bed to make my way to the restroom.

Wait a minute.

I didn’t need to pee.
What a miracle, to go from running to the restroom every five minutes to not
needing to go for an entire night. I sat in silence.

Finally, I reached for a
pen and paper and scratched out a to-do list.

To Do (When I Get Home):

1. Get better at breastfeeding.

2. Lose weight.

3. Take a gazillion pictures of Laurie.

4. Call work and let them know about Laurie and
plan a return date—yuk!

5. George? Where is he?

Was he dead? What could
have happened? I thought about suicide. Certainly if he had become homeless, it
seemed possible. Why hadn’t he come to Jim and me if his only option was the
streets?

What about an accident?
Could George have fallen into the bay and drowned?

The medical examiner had
said the body was badly decomposed. How long would it have to be underwater to
decay? Had it been caught on something that kept it submerged? Seaweed?

My mind flashed on the
Mafia movies and bodies being held down with concrete.

What if he had been
murdered?

“Jim,” I called. He lay
motionless on the cot, in a deep, exhausted sleep. “Jim,” I called again.

He sat up, startled.
“What is it, honey? Something wrong?”

“I can’t sleep. I’m
thinking about George. What if it’s him, dead in the bay? What if he was
murdered?”

“Murdered? My heaven’s,
Kate! I mean, he’s probably not hanging out with the cream of the crop, but . .
.” He paused, letting out a sigh. “We don’t know anything yet. The medical
examiner asked if George had any identifiers on his body, you know . . . to
help them . . . George has a pin in his ankle and he’s also had his appendix
out.”

My heart stopped.

We could have known if
it was George twenty-four hours ago!

In my calmest voice, I
asked, “Why didn’t you tell the medical examiner that?”

Jim shrugged. “Part of
me is always trying to protect him. What if the guy who called wasn’t even from
the medical examiner’s office? What if it was someone who’s just trying to find
out where George is? Like someone he owes money to or something like that.”

I held out my hand for
Jim. He got up and crossed the room, sitting on the bed. “Honey,” I said. “That
makes no sense. If it was someone George owes money to, why would they ask
about his scars?”

Jim shrugged, then
pinched the bridge of his nose. “All my life everyone has tried to help George.
Growing up, my mom told me to take care of him. Your best friend for life, she
always said. I did my best, but nothing was ever good enough for him. He always
demanded more, giving nothing in return and managing to poison everything and
everyone around him.” His face contorted in anger, then turned to sadness. “I
didn’t want the joy of Laurie’s birth clouded over by news about George.” After
a moment, he said, “I took down the guy’s phone number. I’ll call him when
we’re home, make sure I’m really reaching the medical examiner’s office.”

We sat in silence for a
moment. I put my arms around him and pressed my cheek against his. I understood
his desire to postpone bad news.

As the sun came up, the
room began to glow. I glanced at the clock and realized Laurie was due back at
any minute.

“Sorry I woke you,” I
said.

He stroked my hair. “Try
not to worry about George. I’m doing it enough for the both of us. You focus on
Laurie and on recovering.”

<><><> 

The day nurse wheeled in
our little bundle, wrapped in a pink and blue striped swaddling blanket with a
pink cap on her head. She looked like a tiny cherub with rosy cheeks. I noticed
a scratch on her face. Laurie’s itty-bitty nails were extremely long. The nurse
explained that hospital staff refused to trim them “because of the liability.”

How ridiculous was that?
A qualified nursing professional wouldn’t trim those microscopic things. I’m
supposed to?

How could I trust myself
not to cut off a finger? Where was Giselle? And who was this day nurse who
didn’t even have the decency to help us trim the little talons?

Laurie swung her hands
frightfully close to her bright blue eyes. Jim and I decided filing them seemed
a much safer option.

As I manicured Laurie,
Jim called our family and friends announcing the birth of our daughter. When
Jim dialed his Uncle Roger, I found myself holding my breath.

“Uncle Roger? It’s Jim .
. . we had the baby . . . yeah . . . beautiful baby girl . . . six pounds, five
ounces . . . Laurie. Katie’s doing great.”

Jim listened as Roger
spoke. I continued to eavesdrop, but couldn’t make out much from Roger’s end.

I mouthed to Jim, “Ask
him about George.”

Jim waved me away, then
turned his back to me.

I checked Laurie’s
diaper. Her diapers were so tiny, Jim and I laughed every time we had to change
one. She was dry.

I wondered if the nurse
had changed her. In the baby preparation class, they told us we would now
become “waste watchers.” Laurie needed to have as many wet diapers per day as
she was days old. Two days old, two wet diapers. At least until the mother’s milk
came in. Right now she was surviving solely on colostrum, the premilk.

How would it feel to
have milk come in? Were you supposed to feel anything? So far, I’d noticed
nothing. What if it didn’t come in? What then? How would I know anyhow? And
even if it did come in, would it be enough?

Earlier this morning the
day nurse had stood over our bed and observed me breastfeeding. She frowned as
she wrote down on my chart: “Breastfeeding: mother—poor, baby—poor.”

How could she write
that?

I’m an overachiever by
nature, but the nurse’s remark about me didn’t bother me as much as the remark
about Laurie. How could she say Laurie was “poor” at anything? I felt an
immediate instinct to defend my little one. Forget that nurse. We would show her.
We were going to become breastfeeding wonders.

When did Giselle’s shift
start?

Jim hung up the phone,
the sound interrupting my thoughts. “Uncle Roger hasn’t heard from the medical
examiner’s office.”

“Oh? I didn’t hear you
ask him.”

“I didn’t. But he didn’t
say anything about it, so I know they didn’t call him.”

“Why didn’t you
just ask him?”

“Why bother him? Hasn’t
Roger been through enough?”

I felt my stomach
tighten. “Aren’t you worried?”

Laurie answered with a
wail as though she sensed her father’s distress.

Avoiding my question,
Jim teased, “Go ahead and try that breastfeeding thing again. I hear you two
are poor at it.”