A hand-lettered sign hung from the porch rail.
GRACE HAVEN. ALL ARE WELCOME.
The air smelled of boiled greens and lemon cleaner.
Somebody had left a string of Christmas lights up since December, and they blinked in the dusk, red and green, in April.
The porch was full.
Women on folding chairs, plates on their knees, a screen door that squeaked every time it opened.
At the far end, on a bench painted blue, sat Emily.
She had a baby in each arm, wrapped in crocheted blankets.
One was pale yellow, one was mint.
On the yellow one, somebody had stitched a name in white thread.
RUBY.
On the mint one.
OWEN.
I stopped at the bottom of the steps.
“Emily,” I said.
Every head on the porch turned.
She looked up.
She did not smile.
She stood slowly, and she did it the way a person stands when she has learned to stand between something and the world.
