Listening to his happy smacks and grunts, I thought, He doesn’t know enough to be afraid. As long as she feeds him and cuddles him and keeps him dry and warm, this could be no different for him than that night exactly six weeks after his birth, when he stayed with his sisters at my mom’s place, so Trey and I could have a romantic overnight at the St. Regis.

I was grateful then, so grateful that it wasn’t Peyton or Anna-Claire. Peyton had been born so anxious. I had a flash of her in a dark room, curled into a fetal ball, picking her fingernails bloody. Anna-Claire chose fight over flight every time. I saw her hurling her body against a locked door, screaming until someone came to drug her or hurt her or gag her. My body shuddered with a thousand feelings. Hate and rage and helplessness, but also this strange gratitude that Robert was so young. I could get him back undamaged, just himself.

I put the Bluetooth in my ear. I transferred my wallet, some cash, and the cheap cell phone into a black beaded bag. It was a little large for evening, but I had a lot to carry.

I reached for my own iPhone, and it felt like reaching for Trey. As my fingers closed around it, I was swamped again with that desperate need to call him. I wanted his arms around me so damn bad. I’d call Trey first, then the police, my father-in-law with his political connections and his money. Or I’d call Marshall, who was so gruff with me these days, but surely all our history could trump that. He had guns and understood crimes. Marshall could find her.

A picture flashed in my head. Me, peering through a crack in her drapes. I would shoot her right between her eyes with one of Marshall’s pistols, then run in to pluck my baby out of her dead arms.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” I said out loud, apologizing as if she could feel the ripples of my imaginary rebellion. I couldn’t stop seeing my son’s small head, round and covered in a floss of pale hair, resting in her gnarled hands. His neck was such a slender stem, still wobbly when he held his head up. One twist. It would be so fast. So final. My own head shook back and forth in a silent, involuntary no.

I shoved the bracelet up higher on my arm, feeling the good bite of it into my flesh. I wasn’t going to call anyone. I was going to follow the rules.