I did not think that Trey had lied to me. I believed he had told me the story the way he remembered it. He believed every word he’d said. That was the problem. Belief and memory couldn’t make Lexie Pine any less a victim of rape, couldn’t justify his refusals to give that damning picture more than a glance. His belief and his memories also didn’t make me into the girl he’d first seen and fallen for at the High. I’d known him seventeen years, and all that time didn’t make my early history any less like Lexie’s.

A little after four, Robert woke up for his bottle. I listened to my husband feeding his son. He talked so soft and sweet to him, saying, “Is that good, Bumper? Yeah, buddy, there ya go,” and then hummed in a soft rumble. After, the familiar thump of his hand on Robert’s back. “Let’s get that extra burp out.”

Once Robert was back down, Trey crept into our room to get fresh clothes. He took them into the master bath. I feigned sleep as he got ready for work, unready to argue again. I wanted to give him time and space to think, to remember, before I tried to get through to him again. He loved me. I believed that my words would stay with him today. He left early, before six, without trying to wake me.

I went to the nursery as soon as Trey was gone. I didn’t want Robert left alone. Not even in his own room with the baby monitor on. I found him deeply asleep, arms thrown over his head. I felt grainy-eyed and hollow, so tired that my peripheral vision had gone fuzzy and dark spots swam before my eyes.

I sat down in the rocker to wait for him to wake. Down the hall I could hear whichever night-shift bodyguard had not gone with Trey walking heavy-footed to the kitchen. Getting coffee, I assumed. I closed my eyes and rested my head back, limp and faintly nauseous, until Robert stirred, making his stretchy, waking-up sounds.

I opened my eyes, and there, at the foot of his crib, glowing in the pale light of new morning, stood Lexie Pine. She was young and lovely and wrecked and angry in her white dress. I realized it was the white dress. The one her mother believed that every girl was issued at birth, that would show every stain and that she would be wearing on her wedding day. Her wedding day had never come, though. She’d never had a marriage or children, a connected family life, so she had come to show the dress to me. It was torn, streaked with blood and grime. I knew that my husband had helped ruin it. Her mouth twisted down, and her eyes shone with avid hunger as she stared at my son.