I was days away from my due date when I caught my husband dismantling our custom-built crib. “My sister needs it more, she’s having twins,” he grunted, loading it into his truck. When I stood on the porch, crying and begging him to stop, his mother shoved me aside. “Don’t be selfish,” she spat. My foot slipped on the icy top step. I tumbled down, hitting the concrete hard. As they drove away, ignoring my screams, a sharp, tearing pain ripped through my stomach… and the snow beneath me started turning red.

She picked up her daughter.

Nora was light, but she had that solid, compact density of things that have survived an early frost. Her skin smelled of sweet almond oil and clean laundry. Mia lowered her into the center of the mattress, watching her small hands star out against the acorn-printed sheet, her dark eyes blinking up at the nursery ceiling where the winter sun was finally breaking through the cloud bank.

Below, the house was completely silent.

The locks were new. The deed was in the safe. The driveway was clear of salt, the tire tracks already melting into the wet earth as the wind shifted from the north to the south, bringing the faint, mineral smell of the thaw.

Mia leaned over the walnut rail, resting her chin on her hands, watching her daughter’s chest rise and fall with the steady, unbothered rhythm of the living.

“No one,” she whispered to the quiet room, her breath warm against the dark grain, “takes what is yours.”

And outside, through the open curtains, the snow slid from the hemlock boughs and fell into the drifts below, leaving the dark wood bare and clean against the clearing sky.