“I don’t know.” His voice trembled. “He looked mad.”
Suddenly, every trace of exhaustion vanished.
I felt completely awake.
“What happened next?”
Max swallowed hard.
“A lady came.”
“What lady?”
I still remember every tiny detail from that moment.
The faint buzzing of the hallway light overhead.
The scent of baby lotion lingering on my shirt.
The pressure building inside my ears.
“What do you mean she looked like me?”
“Same hair,” he whispered. “Same face shape. But older. And she was crying.”
I tried convincing myself he was only five.
Children that age misunderstand things.
They notice unusual details.
Sometimes they fill in the blanks with imagination when they’re frightened.
Max glanced toward the nursery before lowering his voice even further.
“Daddy gave her a big envelope. Like the kind in movies. The fat kind.”
Every hair on my arms stood up.
“And then?”
His tears finally spilled over.
Quietly.
His entire body shook.
“He told me not to look.” He sniffled. “But I did.”
“No.” He pulled away slightly and stared into my eyes, desperate for me to believe him. “Mommy, he took the baby from her.”
I couldn’t move.
“He took the baby, and she was crying, and he said, ‘This is the only way this works.’”
My mouth suddenly felt dry.
“Did you see the baby’s face?”
Max nodded once.
“She had the pink hat. Not the flower hat.”
At the hospital, our daughter had worn two different hats because she had spit up earlier that day.
One of them had been plain pink.
The other had a tiny flower.
I had never mentioned that to Max.
I can’t clearly remember what I said after that conversation.
I know I tucked Max into bed and stayed beside him until he drifted off to sleep, his little fist wrapped tightly in my shirt.
I know I walked downstairs feeling as though I were moving underwater.
Daniel was standing in the kitchen preparing a bottle.
He looked up.
“He calm down?”
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