Chapter 8
I heard the delivery before I saw it, which was strange because there wasn't a delivery at all.
It was just after nine on Tuesday morning. Jake had gone to get gas and groceries, and I was sitting in the living room with the curtains drawn, my feet up, the temporary order folded on the coffee table where I could see it. A car slowed in front of our house, not stopping, just that long crawl people do when they're looking at addresses. Then a soft thump on the porch.
I didn't move at first. My hand went to my belly without thinking. The baby was turning, a slow, heavy roll that made my breath catch. I counted to ten the way the victim advocate had told me to, then stood and looked through the narrow window beside the front door.
On the mat sat a wicker basket wrapped in clear cellophane, big pink bow on top. Inside were folded blankets, a stuffed lamb, a box of those pastel teddy bear cookies, and a white envelope taped to the handle. No car in the driveway. Whoever left it was already gone.
I called Jake. "Someone left something on the porch," I said. "I haven't touched it."
"Don't," he said. "I'm two minutes away. Don't open the door."
He came in fast, checked the street both ways, then brought the basket inside with a dish towel around the handle, like he didn't want to smudge fingerprints. He set it on the kitchen counter and we both stared at it. The card inside the envelope was in Linda's handwriting. I recognized the loop on the y.
For my grandbaby — Love, Grandma Linda. This nursery should be filled with love, not locks. I only want to see my room.
Underneath, smaller: Psalm 127:3.
My throat went dry. Jake took the card by the corner and slid it back in the envelope.
"That's contact," he said. "That's indirect contact. She knows she can't come here."
I nodded, but my hands were shaking. The lamb in the basket stared up at us with glass eyes. I thought about the white crib two rooms away, the mobile with its teddy bears and stars that hadn't moved since the night she had her hands around my neck.
Jake called the sheriff's office before I could talk myself out of it. Deputy Reyes came that afternoon. She didn't touch the basket either. She photographed it where it sat, the card, the angle from the porch to the window, and she bagged the envelope with gloved hands.
"She didn't hand it to you directly," she said, writing in her notebook. "But a gift to the residence with a note addressing the protected party and the baby, after service? That's attempted indirect contact. I'll log it as a potential violation and attach the photos to the order file. Save any packaging. Don't wash the towel."
"What about her driving by?" Jake asked.
Reyes looked up. "Did you see her?"
Jake shook his head. "Sarah heard a car crawl by. We don't have a camera that faces the street yet."
Reyes left us her card again. "If she comes again, call. Document every try, even if it feels small. The judge wants pattern, not one bad day."
An hour later my phone rang. The screen said Helen Miller. She'd been Linda's friend since Jake was in middle school, the woman who ran the church nursery and always brought lemon bars to potluck.
I let it go to voicemail. Then I listened with Jake right there.
"Sarah, honey, it's Helen," her voice said, soft, practiced. "Linda is just heartbroken. She asked if maybe I could come see the nursery, just to put her mind at ease that everything's ready? She picked out those curtains herself, you know. She wouldn't ask herself because she respects the paperwork. I told her I'd ask. No pressure, sweetheart. We all just want peace for that baby."
I felt the heat rise up my neck, the same red marks that had faded to yellow-green now prickling again. Jake's jaw tightened.
I called Maya, the advocate, and put her on speaker. I played Helen's message.
"That's a proxy request," Maya said flatly. "That's exactly what the order means by third-party contact. You say no, and you say it through me. I'll call Helen back and log it. Do not answer Helen again. Do not explain. A no doesn't need a reason."
"Will the judge care that it wasn't Linda herself?" I asked.
"The judge will care that Linda sent her," Maya said. "That's textbook."
Maya called back twenty minutes later. Helen had answered, had said Linda was just trying to be a grandmother, that surely Sarah didn't want to keep a baby from its family. Maya said she told Helen the order barred indirect contact of any kind, including messages passed through friends, and that any further outreach would be documented. Helen had gone quiet, then said she understood.
After the sun went down, Jake worked on the nursery window. He'd bought a window lock and a small white camera that night, the kind that sticks to the trim and watches the porch and the side yard. He didn't ask me if I wanted it. He just laid out the tools on the white carpet and said, "I'm fixing this lock. It jiggled last night."
I sat on the edge of the crib and watched his hands. The frame rattled when he tested the old latch. It lifted a quarter inch when he pulled. He swore under his breath, then drilled a pin lock into the frame and added a dowel in the track. He threaded the new sheer curtains tighter on the rod so they covered the glass edge to edge. When he mounted the camera in the corner above the American flag art, its little red light blinked once and went solid.
He turned his phone to me. Live view: the crib, the mobile, the window, the white carpet, all lit clean and still.
"Motion alerts to both our phones," he said. "And to the cloud. No one gets near this window without us knowing."
That night, after midnight, my phone buzzed. Motion detected: side yard.
The video was twelve seconds long. Grainy night vision. Our house, the mint wall glowing pale, the window dark except for the thin line where the curtains met. A shadow moved past, slow. Not up on the porch, but along the side where the nursery window was. The figure didn't touch the glass, just paused, head turned toward it, then kept walking out of frame toward the street.
Jake rewound it, paused, zoomed. You couldn't see a face, just a shape in a long coat, the walk familiar. And on the ground, when he switched to the porch camera, there were footprints in the thin dew on the concrete, half-moon toe marks right below the nursery window where someone had stood.
In the morning Reyes came again. She watched the clip twice on Jake's phone, took a copy, measured the footprints with a small ruler and photographed them. She didn't say for sure it was Linda. She wrote down subject in long coat, approx. 5'6", viewed from rear, lingered 4 seconds at nursery window exterior.
"She didn't knock, she didn't leave a note this time," Reyes said, zipping her notebook. "But combined with the basket and the Helen call yesterday? That's escalation by proxy and surveillance. I'm filing it as attempted indirect contact and stalking behavior under the temporary order. It won't be an arrest today, but it's leverage for your hearing. Keep the cameras on. Keep that basket. And Sarah — don't sweep that porch."
When she left, I stood in the nursery alone. The carpet was still white, still perfect, except now I could see two faint half-moons near the window where Jake's shoes hadn't stepped. Footprints on the white carpet, but outside the glass, pressing in.
Jake came up behind me and didn't touch the window. He put his hand on my shoulder.
May you like
"We're going to need that hearing," I whispered.
He nodded, his hand tightening just enough to hold me steady. "She's not going to stop herself."
