Cleaning Elijah’s room was gonna be a job. Amira would need to give Ludwik a raise, if he didn’t quit on the spot when he opened the door. But I felt like I’d done my part, at least for the day. After everyone had a chance to collect themselves—after Elijah learned to feed and the baby learned to eat and I drank the hot chocolate dispenser dry—I helped Elijah hobble across the hall and got him settled in a new bed with clean sheets, whereupon he conked out as if Mister Sandman had been lying in wait with a cosh. The Golden Girls marathon followed us across the hall, and I plopped into the room’s little leatherette reading chair with an armful of T-shirt-swaddled newborn to laugh along. For her part, the baby pretty much laid there. She lifted her eyelids to about half mast maybe twice, and
