The ambulance and the police were at our little house five minutes later. Agnieska was so crazed with grief that the ambulance men insisted she be taken to the psychiatric hospital. I was asked to go with the police to the local precinct and I was politely kept there as they waited to hear from the medical examiner about the cause of death. Six hours later the call came from the coroner: Karol had succumbed to SIDS – sudden infant death syndrome. I was put on the phone with the doctor who had done the autopsy. He tried to assure me that the name of the syndrome said it all: it was sudden and came out of nowhere … and there was no exact reason why such a monstrous thing happened to an innocent baby. ‘What can I say, sir,’ the doctor said, ‘except that it’s a bit like the Angel of Death showed up out of nowhere and took your son away.’

The cops were kind. Our families were kind. Todor was especially kind – sitting with me every night for the two weeks that Agnieska spent in the psychiatric ward. I wanted to sit with her all day. The doctors would only allow me an hour with her every morning and early evening. She was on suicide watch. Todor came along several evenings and always asked for a half-hour alone with my wife. I never asked him what went on during those private moments between them – but when she emerged from the hospital at the end of that terrible time she did start going to Mass daily. She did tell me on several occasions that Todor had brought her back from the absolute brink; that she had blamed herself for Karol’s death. And that she would carry this tragedy with her forever.

With Agnieska, with our family and friends, and at Mass every Sunday (which my wife now insisted that we attend together), I put on a brave front, especially in front of my father – who would have called me a sissy for buckling under the desperate grief that I felt within. Todor kept me steady. But inside I felt beyond torn up. I threw myself into work, having six consecutive banner-sales quarters. My wife went back to cleaning teeth. The silence at home in the evening was often terrible. For months Agnieska wouldn’t even let me hold her. Todor stepped in when I blurted out one night that ‘intimacy’ had vanished from our lives; that we had become strangers to each other; that I didn’t know how to help her because (truth be told) I also didn’t know how to help myself.