Could it be a coincidence? I stare long and hard at those earrings and think: probably not.

Could our Willow Greer be the same girl, with a profile photo that is not her own? Maybe. I browse others’ profile photos: a dog, a cat, Marilyn Monroe. There’s no law that says your photo has to be your photo. On a whim I set up my own Twitter account. @MoneyMan3. I upload a photo I find online, some male model with blue eyes and bushy blond hair, shirtless, flaunting six-pack abs.

A man can dream.

I send a tweet to @LostWithoutU.

Does it hurt? I ask, about the parallel red lines lacerated into the skin.

And then I make my phone call.

I have an old college friend who does some PI work around town, mostly in the realm of cheating spouses. Martin Miller. He’s got the best stories to tell, stories of high-class women winding up in seedy hotels. His website claims to find lost loves, college sweethearts, teenage runaways. Maybe he can help.

When Martin answers I tell him about our little situation. He vows to be utterly discreet.

The last thing I need is Heidi to know I’ve hired a PI. Or for this information to wind up in the wrong hands. If he turns the information over to authorities... No, I think. I scan the website again. Utmost discretion, it says. And besides, I know this guy.

How is it, then, that I know about the high-class women and the seedy hotels? No, I think, pushing that thought from my mind. I hear him laugh about it at some dive bar out in Logan Square. It was about five years ago, maybe more. We were drunk.

I know this guy.

Later that night, as I lie in the magenta sleeping bag on the floor, I think of that girl, the look on her face when she saw the fire. How does a teenage girl come to be terrified of lightning? Of fire?

Zoe hasn’t been scared of those things since she was eight.

I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

But then again, being solicitous isn’t really my thing. It’s Heidi’s.

HEIDI

Willow settles into our home slowly, like the natural weathering of rocks over time, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. Pebbles. She reveals little about herself, nearly nothing, and yet that alone becomes commonplace. I stop asking questions, stop trying to solicit information about her, her family, her past, knowing the responses will be sparse and incomplete.

There is a brother. A brother named Matthew. That much I know.

In what little time she’s been with us, each of us takes to her in our own way, Chris in a synthetic way, his empathy manufactured and strained. He tolerates her, though each day I’m barraged with questions about how many more days she will stay.

“One night?” he asks. “Two?” though I tell him I don’t know. He shakes his head at me and says, “Heidi. This is really getting out of hand,” and I make him see that for all the days she’s been with us, she hasn’t done a single harmful thing: our lives are still intact, electronics have yet to be swiped from the home while we sleep.

She’s harmless, I tell him. But he is not so sure.

And yet, from time to time my mind retreats to the blood on the undershirt, hurled down the garbage shoot and now taking up residence in some landfill in Dolton. I wonder whether or not it truly belonged to Willow as she said it did, an effect of the cold spring air, or if perhaps... But I stop myself, refusing to consider other options. I see those blood splatters at the oddest of times: when taking a shower, when making dinner. Quiet moments when my thoughts wander away from me, away from the everyday busyness to blood.

I find myself thinking about the baby, about Ruby, all the time, when I’m not thinking about the blood. Holding Ruby and listening to her wail, it reminds me of all the imaginary children I once longed to have. The ones I was supposed to have. I find myself dreaming night after night about babies: living babies, dead babies, cherubic babies, cherubs, with their angelic wings. I dream of Juliet. I dream of embryos and fetuses, and baby bottles and baby shoes. I dream of giving birth to babies all night long, and I dream of blood, blood on the undershirt, blood oozing from between my legs, red and thick, coagulating inside my panties. Panties that were once a brilliant white, like the undershirt.

I wake in a panic, sweating, while Chris and Zoe never stir.

Zoe takes to Willow as she does most everything in life: with hostility. There are days she eyeballs the girl from across the room with something akin to loathing in her eyes. She grumbles about sharing her clothing with the girl, or not being allowed to watch some kitschy show on the TV. She refuses to hold Ruby for a split second when Willow is in the restroom, and I’m otherwise occupied. She refuses to give the baby a bottle, and when she cries, as she often does, pathetic, persistent crying, Zoe rolls her eyes and walks out of the room.

I take to making three-course meals, grateful that someone is there to lick her plate clean. I make salads and soups, lasagna, and chicken tetrazzini, watching as Willow devours the meals one by one, always grateful for seconds, while Zoe stares desolately at the food, asking questions like, “What even is this?” and, “I thought we were vegetarians,” in that way only a preteen can, the falsetto of her voice, whiny and shrill. I watch Zoe pick at the lettuce leaves of her salad like a rabbit, thankful that Willow, across the table, is completely ravenous, and will not let good food go to waste.

In the afternoon, when Zoe is at school, and I am home from work, I find myself staring at Willow. At Ruby. At the way Willow handles Ruby, heavy-handed and inept, until I lift the baby from her arms and say, “Here, let me,” sure to tack on, “You could use a break,” so as not to insult her. I don’t know what she makes of it, of the way I remove the baby from her arms. I’m not entirely sure I care. I press my lips to the baby’s forehead and whisper, “There now, sweet girl,” as I bobble her up and down ever so gently, trying hard to make her smile.

I settle into the new rocking chair, purchased online and delivered this morning via FedEx, a delivery which Chris has yet to see. I paid extra, nearly a hundred dollars, for expedited delivery, though this detail I won’t mention to Chris. I press my back into the lumbar support and the baby and I begin to sway. I hum Patsy Cline lullabies under my breath, songs that my mother one day hummed to me, which seems to get Willow’s attention, though she tries hard to pretend she doesn’t care.

I watch the girl out of the corner of my eye, wondering ominously if or when she will want the baby returned to her custody, when she will tire of staring at Muppets on the TV screen, and wish to retreat to the office with Anne of Green Gables and the baby. My arms tighten around the baby automatically, like a seat belt in an auto collision.

Willow has been with me for over forty-eight hours now, and all I know is her first name, if, as Chris points out, that is her real name.

And that she has a brother. Matthew.

She doesn’t offer a thing about herself, and I don’t ask, certain that any interrogation will scare her away, and she will leave, taking with her the baby. My mind makes up for the lack of information, inventing all sorts of narratives that brought her and her baby into our lives, tales of spring tornadoes sweeping through the Midwest and carrying her from her home, tales of her running away to escape the huntsman who’s to return to the castle with her heart. From time to time she starts to say something, only ever a single word, or sometimes just a syllable or two that sneak between her lips, but then she stops herself suddenly and claims oblivion.

She’s grave. She doesn’t smile. She might as well be an elderly lady, what with all the baggage she carries in her eyes and meek demeanor. She’s quiet, virtually silent, sitting on that sofa, staring blindly at the TV. She watches cartoons mostly, almost always Sesame Street, staring at the TV longingly, until Chris or Zoe or I break her reverie.