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.Now, for some reason, Elaine was startled at the sight of that large, adult foot.It seemed like only moments ago she’d been able to fit baby Olivia’s entire foot in her mouth.Moments, days, weeks, years; along the way, that baby had turned into a woman, and Elaine couldn’t help but wonder if she had paid the slightest attention to the time as it passed.She could remember almost nothing about Olivia’s infancy and early childhood.Brief flashes of memory were all that remained, and Elaine had little confidence even in those; they all seemed to coincide with the photographs she had snapped.Elaine was startled from her reverie by a soft knock at the door.She raised her eyes and met Izaya’s as he peeped in.She nodded, and he entered, laden with a ridiculously large bouquet of spring flowers in a cut-glass vase, a stuffed moose that must have been three feet long under one arm, and a dozen Mylar balloons tied to his wrist.Elaine burst out laughing when she saw him, and Olivia woke to the sound.“Oh, no,” he said.“Did I wake you up?”“No, no.It’s okay.What did you bring?” Olivia asked, her voice languid.“Um, a moose.”Elaine laughed again.She gently laid the still-sleeping baby in her bassinet and held out her hands to Izaya.He gave her the flowers and the stuffed animal and then untied the balloons.They floated up to the ceiling.Half of them had dancing blue bears and read, “It’s a boy.” The other half had the same picture in pink and announced the arrival of a girl.“Arthur called and told me you were in labor.I didn’t know if it was a girl or a boy.”“This is Luna,” Elaine said, picking up the baby and handing her to Izaya.Izaya looked startled at his burden, but then his face softened.He rocked back and forth on his heels, holding the baby in his arms.“She’s as beautiful as her mother,” he said, and then blushed.Luna woke with a soft cry and Izaya quickly handed her over to Olivia.Olivia settled the baby in the crook of her arm and pulled down the shoulder of her hospital gown.Elaine watched Izaya’s face as the baby nuzzled her mother’s full breast, rooting around until she found the long pink nipple, and then gulping greedily.Olivia smiled serenely down at Luna.Her hair was full and wild and caught the light shining though the slats in the window shades with a glint of gold brightness.Her cheeks were flushed, as was the full, round breast pressed up against the baby’s face.She was beautiful.Izaya stared and then, suddenly seeming to realize that perhaps he shouldn’t be looking, glanced quickly away.Elaine pulled the rocking chair up to the edge of the bed.“Why don’t you sit down,” she said.Then she walked to the other side of the room and busied herself arranging the flowers and gathering the balloons into a bright bouquet in a corner.She listened to the low hum of Olivia’s voice describing her labor to Izaya, in perhaps more detail than Elaine thought was strictly necessary.Elaine ached to see the almost timid longing she recognized in Izaya’s face.She wondered, again, about the extent of his feelings for Olivia.His eagerness, his tenderness, gave him away.Elaine smiled ruefully to herself at the thought that Olivia might finally have found a man of whom even her mother could be proud.She couldn’t decide, however, if she was really seeing something that was there, or if it were only her own desperate hope for a future for her daughter that led her to imagine a connection that did not exist.Lawyers were not allowed to fall in love with their clients, and if Izaya had, by some accident of chemistry or fate, then surely he would never act on it.Olivia was going to jail.What was the point of this impossible newborn love?Elaine leaned heavily on the windowsill, closing her eyes against the tears that threatened to begin again.She, a woman who never cried, who had remained dry-eyed at the birth of her own child, in the courtroom where her marriage was dissolved, at her father’s graveside, had wept so often and so freely since Olivia’s conviction that sometimes she wondered whether the tears would ever stop flowing.She felt like a faucet whose washer had given way with a final groan, allowing a constant stream of water to come pouring through the tap.She didn’t like anything about her tears.She ­didn’t like the hot prickling in her eyes.She didn’t like the red ache in her nose after her eyes finally dried up.She didn’t like the pitying glances of those who saw her crying.She brushed angrily at her face and got up.“I’m going to go get some breakfast,” she said.Luna had fallen off the breast and lay in the crook of Olivia’s arm.Olivia leaned back on her pillows, her breast still exposed, the pink nipple spilling a clear stream down onto the sheet.“Honey,” Elaine said.“You’re leaking.”***“She really is beautiful,” Izaya said, after Elaine had left the room.He was staring not at the baby, but at Olivia.She moved to cover her breast.She paused for a moment, her hand resting lightly across her nipple.She looked directly into his eyes, and her mouth softened, almost into a smile.He blushed, and she tugged her nightgown into place.Olivia made a nest of blankets for the sleeping baby next to her body.She lay Luna down [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]