Finding North unresponsive. Pulling him from the crib, trying to get him to breathe again. Calling an ambulance, screaming to Graham, rushing to the hospital. It had been too late already. You’d known that the moment you’d found him. But you didn’t know what else to do. You wanted to be in the hands of kind nurses, knowledgeable professionals, someone to explain to you what the fuck had happened. You wanted someone to hold you close and tell you how sorry they were. You knew, deep down, that Graham would do no such thing.

You’d gone through the days after North’s death in a fog. There was the small, brutal funeral you barely recall. How, on your drive home—your fucking drive home from the cemetery!—Graham said that maybe he should sell the crib, and he knew some parents who might want some of the baby toys. You wanted to rip his head off. “We aren’t selling anything,” you roared. “North is still with us. He’s still here.”

How could someone be so present, so loud, so all-encompassing, and then . . . gone? Even worse, maybe gone because of something you could have prevented?

And it just sort of started there.

Part of you understood that there was no baby in your arms as you slowly moved around the nursery, rocking and cooing. Part of you knew that you should take the car seat out of your car, and fold up the stroller, and stop the monthly diaper delivery. Part of you understood that you could revert to a more adult sleep schedule instead of waking in the night and padding down the hallway to check if your nonexistent baby was still sleeping. But another big part of you really couldn’t bear North being gone, so you decided it wasn’t true. Your mind conjured him growing, changing, thriving. You bought him new baby toys, then toddler toys; you played nursery rhyme songs in the car and sang the ABCs and talked about plants and animals. You didn’t talk about him to your co-workers—they knew what had happened—but you mentioned him to strangers all the time. “My baby just turned one,” you’d say to people in the grocery store a few neighborhoods away as you plunked a jug of whole milk on the counter. “We’re going to see how he likes full-fat milk!” Or, “My baby just turned two and a half,” you’d say to a new massage therapist you were trying out, one who lived in a different part of town and didn’t cross paths with anyone you knew. “And ooh am I sore from chasing him around!”