Part of what made the next few days so frightening was not knowing. The cuff-link man hadn’t said anything to prepare me, and even if I’d had a doctor to call, I wouldn’t have called him. This wasn’t the sort of thing doctors helped with if they wanted to stay doctors. The bleeding started that night and continued for the next two days. It felt like being in labor, only alone and with more blood. As I sat on the toilet, I clenched my teeth to keep the sounds I was making from scaring anyone—even though you were gone during the day, there were still the neighbors to think of—but keeping my mouth shut made it worse. I could feel those sounds trying to come out other openings instead: my nose, my eyes, my ears, between my legs, except that none of those holes were big enough. My muffled sounds combined with the sounds of the blood clots as they hit the water. I told myself not to look, but each time I had to look, and each time it looked like too much blood. I couldn’t go to the hospital. I was afraid of what they’d do to me there. Meanwhile, I was leaving a blood trail down the hallway from bedroom to bathroom. In between cramps I mopped it up, to keep from staining Grete’s nice floors, and to keep you and Kaja from any unpleasant surprises when you returned home.

GRETE WASHINGTON: I do not like to think of that time. Lillian was in such pain, but she did not make a noise because she did not want to scare the girls. Even so, the pain was written on her face. Sometimes when I was with her, a small sound came from her mouth, and this was like seeing the fin of the shark and knowing the shape that was hidden below.