Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight

courage to forge ahead with him on a family of our own.
    “Not everything about where you’re headed, Molly, has to be about where you’ve been,” he’d told me once when we’d been deep in the throes of debating getting pregnant the first time.
    And I’d believed him, proof of just how much I’d loved him.
    “It’s a baby,” I blurted out when Justin returned with our coffees. So much for playing it cool. He hadn’t even sat down.
    “What?” Justin looked confused.
    “The body they found,” I said. “It’s a baby.”
    His face was stiff as he lowered himself into the chair across from me. “Well, that’s a completely upsetting turn of events.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    He turned his coffee cup in his hands. His face was tighter. He was trying hard not to overreact, but he was worried. It was obvious.
    “Do they know whose it is?”
    I shook my head and willed my tears back. “Somebody terrified, I’m sure.”
    I knew that much from my years at NAPW. I’d never handled the criminal side of things; my focus had been on legislative change, drafting amicus briefs and working with lobbyists. But I had spoken to colleagues who had clients with pregnancies that had ended in tragedy. Almost always, the women had been abused themselves or worse. They were usually poor and alone, always terrified and overwhelmed. Assigning blame in these circumstances wasn’t nearly as simple as some people liked to believe.
    Justin reached forward and put a hand over mine. “Are you okay?”
    I shrugged, then nodded and again tried hard not to cry. Because as much as I wanted to pretend I was upset about what the poor mother of this baby might have been through—assuming she was responsible—I was thinking more about myself. I was thinking about what I had been through. What I was still going through, at least enough that I wasn’t ready to contemplate trying for another baby. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready for that. But I had to be careful. If I seemed like I was slipping under again, Justin wouldn’t let me out of his sight.
    “Obviously, it would be better if it weren’t a baby,” I said, trying to smile. It didn’t feel convincing. “But I can handle it.”
    Justin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was quiet for a long time, then turned to stare out the window. “Are you sure you should do this story, babe?” He had this expression on his face when he looked at me again: tragic, as though I were the tragedy. “I know it’s an opportunity, and that’s important. But maybe it’s not worth it.”
    “I have to do it,” I said, probably too forcefully. I smiled weakly, trying to claw back some credibility. “It feels—I don’t know, connected somehow. To what happened to us.”
    “But it’s not.” Justin eyed me seriously. If he was trying to hide his alarm, he was not succeeding. “You know that, right? This has nothing to do with what happened to us.”
    “Of course I know that, Justin.” And I did. Didn’t I?
    “I just, I don’t want you to . . .” He looked more than worried. He looked petrified. “Where’s Richard, anyway? Shouldn’t he be back soon?”
    Justin loved me and wanted to help. But there was a difference between protecting me and making me feel irrevocably damaged.
    “This is my story, Justin,” I said, wishing I hadn’t phrased it quite that way. “It’s my responsibility. And I have the expertise—both personally and professionally—to handle it. I’m not going to ‘give’ it back to Richard because it’s a little ‘uncomfortable’ for me. Life is uncomfortable. I can’t hide from it.”
    My phone buzzed with a text, saving me from further interrogation. I braced for it to be from Erik, Nancy having told him that I’d seemed too unstable to be trusted with such an important story. But it was Stella. Can you meet me at Univ. Hospital? Please?
    “Who’s that?” Justin asked, pointing his chin toward the phone.
    “Stella,” I said, wondering