Briggs's jaw moved like he was chewing on something he didn't like the taste of. 7 Months. Evelyn looked at the house. She looked at the boot.
She looked at the washing line where nothing hung, where there hadn't been laundry hung in what looked like weeks. Based on the state of the rope. Dry and stiff and still. "Is there a child on this property?"
She asked. Briggs didn't answer fast enough, and that told her everything. "There's a baby," she said. It wasn't a question.
"That's none of your business, Miss Hart. Evelyn Hart," she tucked the letter into her coat pocket. "And if there's a baby on this property and no woman in this house, then that notice wasn't a mistake, Mr. Briggs. That notice was desperate.
She walked past him. He called after her. Something sharp. Something about her not being welcome.
About how she had no right to just walk onto a man's property. But Evelyn had already reached the porch step. And when she put her hand on the door and knocked, she heard something that made everything else go quiet. A baby crying.
Not the ordinary cry of a child who wanted feeding or holding. This was something else. This was the thin, papery sound of a child who had been crying so long and so hard that the cry had almost worn itself out, down to something barely above silence. A sound so exhausted it barely had shape left to it.
Evelyn knocked again, harder. No answer. She tried the door. It opened.
The smell hit her first. Wood smoke and something underneath it. Something sour and close. The smell of a sick room that hadn't had its windows opened in too long.
She stepped into the front room and let her eyes adjust. The fire had burned low. There were dishes on the table, not many, but unwashed. A pair of men's boots near the door, mud dried hard on the soles, a coat over a chair.
The ordinary debris of a house where someone was surviving but not living. The crying came from down the short hallway. She followed it. The door to the back room was half open.