“That seems soon.”

“It’s standard.”

“Should I bring more propane for the camp stove?”

“We’ll try to make it last.”

“But—”

Rachel held up the buzzer, as if her demands were not met, the consequences could be dire. “Love you,” she said.

“Love you, too,” Charlie said. “Both of you.”

“Bye, Daddy.” Rachel puppeted Sophie’s little hand in a wave.

Charlie felt a lump rising in his throat. No one had ever called him Daddy before, not even a puppet. (He had once asked Rachel, “Who’s your daddy?” during sex, to which she had replied, “Saul Goldstein,” thus rendering him impotent for a week and raising all kinds of issues that he didn’t really like to think about.)

He backed out of the room, palming the door shut as he went, then headed down the hall and past the desk where the neonatal nurse with the snake tattoo gave him a sideways smile as he went by.

Charlie drove a six-year-old minivan that he’d inherited from his father, along with the thrift store and the building that housed it. The minivan always smelled faintly of dust, mothballs, and body odor, despite a forest of smell-good Christmas trees that Charlie had hung from every hook, knob, and protrusion. He opened the car door and the odor of the unwanted—the wares of the thrift-store owner—washed over him.

Before he even had the key in the ignition, he noticed the Sarah McLachlan CD lying on the passenger seat. Well, Rachel was going to miss that. It was her favorite CD and there she was, recovering without it, and he could not have that. Charlie grabbed the CD, locked the van, and headed back up to Rachel’s room.

To his relief, the nurse had stepped away from the desk so he didn’t have to endure her frosty stare of accusation, or what he guessed would be her frosty stare of accusation. He’d mentally prepared a short speech about how being a good husband and father included anticipating the wants and needs of his wife and that included bringing her music—well, he could use the speech on the way out if she gave him the frosty stare.