the hospital days, something closer to a long-overdue exhale.
June remained in the NICU for eleven days, gaining weight steadily, strong enough eventually to come home without any lasting complications from the emergency delivery. Hazel, six years old, met her baby sister for the first time in the NICU, her small hand pressed gently against the incubator glass, asking, with the particular bluntness only children seem to possess, “Is she going to have to stand on the porch too?”
I told her, as clearly and firmly as I could manage, that nobody in our family would ever have to stand on that porch again.
PART 5
The criminal case against Grady and Pauline moved through the system over the following year. Grady ultimately accepted a plea deal that included several years in state prison on the assault and unlawful restraint charges, along with a permanent restraining order preventing any contact
