Karen did not answer.
Daniel reached for a pencil and rolled it between his fingers.
I said, “Karen?”
“She talks as if the babies are already assigned places,” Karen said. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”
I wrote that down on the back of an envelope.
“Did Vivian tell you why she wants this discussion?”
“No.”
The pencil stopped in Daniel’s hand.
I asked, “Did she tell you to bring anything?”
“No.”
“Then please call me if she gives you a time or place.”
“I will.”
I started to thank her, but Karen spoke first.
“Elena, she is not telling me much either.”
That was the first thing she had said that made the call feel less like an interview and more like a warning.
At one in the afternoon, Karen stood at her kitchen sink with a coffee mug under the faucet when I arrived. She set
