Chapter 79

Mara's POV

I went to see Vivian before Ronan's room. Clara slept against her mother, a little crease between her brows, as if the business of being alive demanded her full attention. Maeve had checked her breathing twice since the lock opened. The child was still tired at the end of a feed, but she was warm and waking when she should.

Gideon lay in the next bed with his hand bandaged nearly to the elbow. Vivian had moved her chair between them. They were not touching. When he woke and asked how Clara was, she answered without making him ask again.

I watched the small courtesy and remembered twelve years of asking for the same one. It didn't erase the past. I was glad Clara could see her parents learn something neither had known how to give me.

“You should sleep,” Vivian said.

“So sho