One night she imagined the baby was still inside of her, and slept easier for the imagining.

Mom had been right. It took exactly seven days for Dad to crumple. When he showed up on Eunice’s doorstep there were no apologies from him—the phrase “I’m sorry” had never been part of his vocabulary. He looked at Mom, then Lucy, and said, “You two coming home, or what?”

He insisted on helping Lucy to the car. “You’re still pretty weak. I’ll not have people saying you made yourself worse on account I wouldn’t help out.”

Things at home got better after that.

Not a lot. Just a little.

Sometimes Dad still whispered whore under his breath.

But things were a little better.

At least she was back home.

* * *

Although the child she’d lost was a boy, Lucy had always assumed she was carrying a girl. At no point during the three brief months (well, the ten brief weeks) she’d had a new life growing inside of her did she ever want to know the child’s sex; she wanted it to be a surprise.

It had been a boy, but she kept telling herself it was a girl.

So, in an effort to help “heal” herself (a word used time and time again in the self-help books that cluttered her bookshelves) she took the advice of one over-hyped Ph.D. and wrote the following letter to her unborn child:

My Dearest Daughter, Sarah:

Tonight, on the night of your birth, I wanted to write you a letter for your future—to tell you of my hopes and plans for you. They probably won’t work out as I hope they will (a mother’s plans rarely do, but that’s the way of things), but I can’t help trying to secure your future for you.

I’m glad you’re a girl. I think I would have had trouble relating to a son. But I feel I can help you through your life.

I’m told that you’ll ask what I was like. Well, most people who knew me will tell you that your mother didn’t usually say much but she saw and listened a lot. I was a quiet girl and hope that you’ll learn the value of silence as you grow. Don’t feel that you have to fill the gaps with meaningless words and pointless conversation; say only what is in your heart, and say it as well as you know how to. It may take a while but people will listen to what you have to say, so never be afraid to share your feelings and ideas with friends or people you hope will come to matter in your life.

I want all I have seen and learned and heard to be of help to you in the years ahead that will be more difficult, exciting, infuriating, and wonderful than you can possibly imagine. I hope you will believe in the equality of men and women, and will learn to look for the person inside, to be as sex-blind or color-blind or religion-blind as any person can be. What I mean is, I want you to be without hate. I look at you—so tiny, so helpless, so new—and wonder how so lovely a baby could ever learn to hate. But if so many others can learn, then so can you.