I brought our breakfast, black coffee and croissants. The croissants were flaky and soft. When I told her that, she nodded but took nothing. Sun crept down the side street as she stared out and beyond to where tourists walked at a relaxed, almost ceremonious, pace among the hedges of the Tuilleries, as though it were Sunday even for them. Coming down the alley a plump Frenchman with a poodle and newspaper whistled to himself. She watched it all gravely, disinterestedly. “What will happen,” she asked, “in time?”

Her face hadn’t moved from the street and her monotone made the question no question at all. “Nothing,” I answered. “Or the same things. We’ll have the same quarrels and joys and disappointments, and food will cost too much and I’ll keep on loving you. I’ll still like sex in the morning, you’ll like it at night, and sometimes I’ll come home at noon to work out a compromise—”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously, I didn’t marry you to provide an heir.”

Her voice was still flat. “Then why did you?”

“Because I love you. It’s that simple.”

“But you wanted a son.” She said it accusingly, or self-accusingly.

“I did, Krissy. So did you.”

“But he was the only chance we’ll ever have.” She turned to me in wonderment. “When they told us that I watched your face before I even thought of me. It was like you were listening to a weather report. I spent three days crying. You never cried.”

“I can’t cry, Krissy. I never could.”

Her eyes blazed. “Damn you,” she said fiercely. “Damn your father for getting shot.”

I reached her as she started sobbing and held her to me, face buried in my shoulder. “Too early,” I said softly. “It’s okay, baby, it’s all right. I brought you here too early, that’s all.” Her shoulders shook with sobbing. “It’s all right,” I wanted to say now. “A son just has to be a boy. There’s no magic in being our boy.” But when I awoke, Kris Ann was gone.

She returned in the morning with two books I liked. I didn’t tell her about the dream.

They weren’t allowing visitors, she said, just her and the police. But friends called and some of my partners. Nora Culhane called, trying to sound angry about being stood up, trying more seriously for a story: I referred her to the police, and did that with all the reporters who called after. The Kells called. Cade called saying he’d hired private police to guard our house; I didn’t thank him and he didn’t ask how I was. Nate Taylor called, but when I asked him where Lee had been last night he didn’t know.

Then Henry called.

He sounded tense. “They won’t let me visit.”

“They’re like that. I’m no worse than when you saw me.”