"It doesn't count as working late if you never leave," came Amelia's voice, through the maze of cubicles. Carson stood, stretched, then caught sight of her, leaning through the open receptionist window.

"I know," he sighed, smiling. He rubbed his thumb against the band on his left ring finger. "I'll go home soon, I promise."

"Sure," Amelia drawled, doubting him. "Tell Cath and Nancy hi for me."

"Will do."

Her footsteps echoed until a lock clicked, distantly, and Carson sat back down, rubbing his forehead. Downstairs probably even the detectives were leaving for the night. Trial prep was taking too long, and he could go home, but if he went home his daughter would attach herself to him, and he'd never get anything done. At least then he'd be happy, he thought wryly. Here, he just missed them both, his wife and his daughter.

He paused over his open files, running a hand through his dark hair. Sighing to himself, knowing that an hour's worth review wouldn't make him any more ready for tomorrow, he opened his leather briefcase and began to sweep the files into tidy piles again.

Then his phone rang.

--

Nancy was on the couch in soft pink flannel. Carson's mother sat beside her, reading the kind of legal thriller he could have debunked three times in the first page, occasionally reaching over to brush her granddaughter's hair back.

"I'll take her."

They spoke in whispers. He picked his daughter up, in one swift smooth movement, without waking her, and held her to his shoulder. She squirmed a little, and then he could feel her breathing against his neck.

"Are you all right?"

Carson shook his head. "I need to go put her down," he said, rubbing her back through the flannel. "I'll be right back."

After he told her, she offered to stay, but he couldn't. He went back to his daughter's room, to the night light and the veritable mountain of stuffed animals, and Nancy had slept through the whole thing.

"Baby," he whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She turned, blinking in her sleep, and huddled into her pillow.

Their bed smelled like Catherine, when he finally made himself go there and lie down. He pulled the covers up under his chin and turned onto his side, and saw her dry cleaning still hanging from the back of their bedroom door. The book she had been reading was still on the table beside the bed.

She can't be gone, he thought, closing his eyes. She can't really be gone. When I wake up in the morning this will all have been a bad dream.

In the morning, when their daughter, his daughter, came and stood beside the bed, all big blue eyes and wide smile, he felt his heart break all over again.

--

He didn't open his briefcase. For the first time since he'd taken this job, he didn't open his briefcase in days. She had bought him that briefcase, a week after he'd gone to work at the district attorney's office. "Makes you look very distinguished," she pronounced, quirking her lips in a smile.

"And I looked ludicrous before?"

She'd laughed at his mock affronted expression. "No, but now you look the part."

It sat by the front door while the relatives all came and went, while his mother and his aunts went through the house, sweeping up everything that could even remind him, just a little, of her. Except Nancy, who was the biggest reminder of all of them. She enjoyed the attention, having female relatives coo over her and give candy, cookies, whatever she wanted, to the poor motherless girl, and they all said she was being brave but she hated her high-necked black dress with the lace at the collar and cuffs.

It was when she started crying for something that she called, in her incoherent way, "khey," that Carson realized he had no idea what he was doing. Cath would have know what Nancy meant immediately. Cath knew where Nancy's little baby plates and silverware were kept. Cath knew how to disassemble the damned baby seat, the one that he hated. Cath knew how much, and when, to feed her. Things had just handled themselves, when she had been around.

And then she had gone back to workã

Carson closed his eyes. For the second night in a row he was lying awake in their cold bedroom, on his side of the empty bed. He couldn't sleep. He was too numb to grieve.

They had been talking about moving, about the possibility of having more children, of finding a nice suburb a little further out of Chicago, of a bigger house. He blinked at the alarm clock. It had gone off, when she was supposed to be getting out of bed, and he had flipped it off feeling like a traitor. When she came back, she would oversleep and it would be his fault.

She's not coming back.

He rolled over. Somehow they were handling the arrangements, people other than him. She had an eye appointment scheduled for Thursday that he'd have to call and cancel. Her book of the month club.

It's all a misunderstanding. She'll walk through the door and we'll have a fight because I've canceled her credit cards. And she'll pick Nancy up like nothing has happened, and she'll know how to make her stop crying when no one else can.

His eyes wide, Carson ran his fingers lightly over the other pillowcase, then pushed himself over the bed and buried his face in it, inhaling deeply. Soon her scent would be gone. Soon there would be a casket and a headstone and then, he and his little daughter would be alone.

The door creaked when she pushed it open and, heart in his throat, Carson turned to see not his wife, but his daughter standing there, in silhouette from the hallway light. She shuffled across the carpet, sniffling.

"Monster," she said, by way of explanation. She raised her arms to him.

Carson reached down and pulled her up in the bed with him, and she pouted when she saw that the other side was empty. "Mommy?"

He had been trying to find the words to say it all day. What a brave girl she is, they'd all said, smiling a little, and he had smiled back, numb, lying.

"She's not here, baby," he said. "She's not coming back."

She stared at him, shocked, her eyes widening. Then she opened her mouth and started wailing, a high miserable sound, and he pulled her down and hugged her into his chest while she cried.

--

After the funeral, when some mythical healing process was supposed to begin, he started dreaming about her coming home, or he dreamt that she had never left, as though the knowledge hadn't quite sunk so far as his subconscious yet. His mother and his aunts had done their best, throughout the house, packing things up, readying them for goodwill or storage, not knowing that everything in the entire house made him think of her. The spare lipstick she had kept in his glove compartment, the rose bushes she'd planted, even the presets on the radio. In five years of marriage she had permeated his life. A half-dozen boxes weren't enough.

So he packed up everything, including Nancy, and moved the two of them to River Heights, to a street with well-manicured lawns and hired help, the kind of house Catherine would have openly scoffed at but secretly loved. It had so much room, room for his mother to move in if she wanted, room in the backyard for a real proper garden, a wide sunny kitchen with a breakfast nook. The kind of house that matched the briefcase she had given him, years before. The kind of house a district attorney should have.

And a daughter who had grown clingy overnight, who screamed if he left her side.

Hannah was the sixth woman he interviewed. She was older than him, but not by much, and the margin was too small for comfort; strike one. She'd never had children; strike two. But she brought over a pie, which ensured that there would never be a third strike.

"I was so sorry to hear about your wife."

She actually seemed to mean it, he mused. He couldn't think anymore. He didn't sleep, but he hadn't known that his not sleeping would be a thousand times worse if Nancy didn't sleep. Between the two of them, they seemed to be having a contest, to see who could hold out longer. The process was killing him.

He nodded a little. "I keep long hours," he began. "I need someone here who can come in the morning, watch Nancy, cook, maybe a little bit of cleaning, make dinner, and go home. Maybe come over and watch her a few hours on the weekend, but I don't mean every weekend, and it may end up that you never need to do that." All his friends had been her friends, and they had been couples, and now there was no couple, there was only him. If he could ever sleep again, he'd have the strength to get through an entire day at work, and then a week, and then he could just keep working until he stopped thinking about her instead of sleeping.

Mrs. Gruen nodded, and he caught the movement as she pushed at her wedding band from beneath her finger, as he did the same.

"I'm sorry," he said, just realizing. "I know it's a lot to ask, since you're married. I just want someone who can be around and look after her."

Hannah smiled, a smile he recognized. "I can do that," she replied. "My husbandãdied recently. It would be a relief just to get out of the house, instead of thinking about him all day."

"It's worse at night," Carson admitted, unable to stop himself.

"Yes, it is," she agreed softly. "Before I saw your ad I thought maybe I'd get a job as a cook on a cruise ship. Get away from here for a while, see if things got better."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

Hannah raised her head and fixed her brown eyes on Nancy's blue ones. "I think that if the little one and I can get along, that I would love to come work for you, Mr. Drew."

Nancy returned Hannah's smile, her arm still wrapped protectively around her father's knee.

--

When he took on the Del Mar case a month later, when he was working well into the night and his meals were takeout sandwiches and Chinese, he didn't have to ask Hannah if she'd be willing to stay over with Nancy. On the third day of the trial, she came to his office, brown paper bag in hand and Nancy in her arms.

"I didn't think you were eating right," she said sternly, as Nancy ran to him and hugged his legs. "I brought you dinner."

Carson, weary, holding his daughter, could only smile in return. "I know this week has been horrible, but my mother's going to be unavailable, and I'll pay you double for this week if you can just stay over at night, with her."

Hannah barely hesitated before nodding. "And I'll bring you a square meal every night," she promised, poking disapprovingly at an empty pizza box.

Nancy was patting his cheek with her palm. Carson stroked her back, meeting her eyes, and a wave of homesickness and longing passed over him. Catherine would have told him to come home. Hannah knew better. When he handed Nancy back over, she squalled for a moment, squirming in Hannah's arms to face her father again.

"Thank you."

Hannah smiled, bittersweet, and nodded, and he knew that she understood.

--

"Stop staring at me."

Nancy was looking away from him, but she was trying not to break into a full grin. She wore a sleek blue dress with her hair up and her mother's pearls around her neck, her slender wrists bare. He could sense her nervousness from across the room. Ned was due in fifteen minutes; she had been ready for forty-five.

"Sorry," he replied, smiling. He twirled the ice in his tumbler with a flick of his wrist before he took another sip. "You won't stay out too late, right?"

"Of course not," she sighed, rolling her eyes.

"So if I wait up..."

"You really shouldn't," she said, turning to him, her blue eyes wide. Then she smiled. "Dad, come on. You trust me."

"I do," he admitted. "I think I'll wait up anyway."

She feigned exasperation, and he smiled into his drink. The smell of lemon drifted into the den; Hannah was cleaning the kitchen before she settled down for the night. She peeked around the corner with a camera in her hands.

"It's your first prom, Nancy," she chided her almost-daughter, when Nancy covered her face. "Come on, get next to your dad. I want a picture."

She was wearing glitter on her skin, he noticed, as he slid his arm around her shoulders. It was subtle and golden. She smelledã his heart clenched in his chest. She smelled like her mother. The pearls, the curve of her smile.

Carson grinned up at the camera, and when Hannah snapped their picture and lowered it, he took another long sip of his drink, quickly.

"You all right?"

He could hear Hannah rummaging around in the refrigerator. Carson gave his daughter a strained smile. "You look like your mother."

Nancy looked down at her dress, touched the pearls at her neck. "I feel like I should say I'm sorry."

"You shouldn't be," Carson said. "You look beautiful, baby."

When the doorbell rang, Nancy pushed herself up immediately, but Carson beat her to the door. "Hello, Ned."

"Hello, Mr. Drew," Ned replied, a corsage still resting in the box in his hands. "Is Nancy ready?"

Carson stood aside, watching his daughter's eyes light up when she saw her boyfriend. They embraced, self-conscious the entire time, and he was amused to see the stilted angle of their bodies. Hannah urged them to pose in front of the mantel for pictures until Nancy, practically vibrating with anticipation, said they had to leave.

"I'll leave the light on."

She swept up her tiny purse and shot him a glowing grin. "Love you, Daddy."

Hannah came back in with a mug of cocoa, while Carson settled into his armchair, maneuvering the ottoman with his feet. "You aren't going to wait up for her, are you?"

Carson dismissed the thought with a wave. "She'll be fine," he said. "She looked so much..."

Hannah blew on her cocoa. "Maybe we should play Scrabble," she said, when he didn't finish his sentence.

"Or chess," he returned.

Hannah chuckled. "It's too late in the day for chess. I can't keep all those pieces straight after the sun's gone down."

"And I can't compete with all these French herbs you know," Carson retorted, and Hannah laughed, making him smile.

"You're gonna be all right."

Carson smiled, remote in his hand, deciding between a game show and a medical procedural. "I guess," he replied.

He kept most of Catherine's things in the attic, locked away for when Nancy decided it was time to discover her heritage. He'd long since given up the idea of getting rid of any of it, anything Catherine might have picked out or bought, anything she might have smiled over. He still slept on his side of what should have been their bed, and only rarely did he ever entertain the notion of sharing it with another. He and Hannah had known, years ago, when she had moved in, that people would say things about the two of them.

But he cared for her like a sister, and she knew that she was Nancy's mother in almost every way save genetic. And that was enough.

Remembering his own senior dance, Carson went to bed at eleven that night, wagering with himself how many lies she would tell to his gentle questioning at breakfast, and how many he would catch. Ned had a healthy, strong handshake and an equally healthy respect for his girlfriend's father; Carson knew that whatever sins they committed tonight would be minor and easily forgiven.

There was one picture on his nightstand, in an ornate silver frame, one Nancy had picked for his Christmas present two years ago. He had his hand on his wife's shoulder, in the posed studio shot, and she was seated, with their two-year-old daughter on her lap. Catherine was in blue, the same blue as her eyes, a strand of pearls around her neck. The same strand of pearls their daughter was wearing to her first prom, tonight.

Carson propped himself up on his elbow, reaching up to turn off the lamp, and his gaze fell on her gentle smile, nearly fifteen years gone. He still felt hollow when he let himself think about her, and all they should have had, and all he had lost that night. All they had lost.

"I think we did okay," he told her, like a prayer to dust. "I think she turned out just fine."