Renewed, she felt that God had given her the forgiveness she had been begging for. She wasn’t a terrible person; she was a good person who had made a bad decision. And for the rest of her life, Winnie planned on atoning for that decision, starting with her baby. He or she would be raised to be conscious of all life, tender, well rounded. Winnie would fix what she had done. She would raise such a wonderful child, so caring and aware. And she’d started by quitting her job so she could take care of this baby full time. She’d only gone back to work when he started kindergarten.

Sam was just going through a stage; all teenagers rebelled against their parents. How many times had she repeated that to herself over the last six months? If Winnie were honest, she’d be able to acknowledge that her current lust for another baby had been triggered by Samuel’s snipping of the apron strings. Fill the hole, do a better job as a mother next time. It was a bold-faced lie she enjoyed telling herself. She could give birth to ten of her own babies and that one baby would still take the primary spot in her heart and mind. Because you killed him, Winnie told herself. And she would never, ever forget that day.

Winnie walked into the house just as the sky was waking up. She didn’t remember getting back into the car or driving home, and now, as she fumbled with the lever on the kitchen sink, she opened it and bent her head to guzzle water straight from the tap This isn’t happening, not really, it’s just a very bad dream, she told herself. There was a strange buzzing noise, interrupted by chirps. A phone. A phone was ringing somewhere. Her phone, she knew. She couldn’t even bring herself to dig for it and look at the screen—she knew whose name she’d see there. She watched as the water washed down the sink. Nigel’s voice was behind her, in the kitchen. It was louder than the awful noise—that god-awful buzzing.

“What happened, what happened?” he said, over and over. She didn’t know; this was a dream. No, it was real. The noise was her; Winnie realized that she was crying, mewling like a lost kitten.

“What happened?” he said again.

Winnie looked down at her sweatshirt, over the spot where her heart was. It was empty. She’d pulled his little body out and laid him on the passenger seat of her car.

“Winnie!” Nigel was shouting now, shaking her. His hand came up and hit her across the face, hard enough to stun her out of the nightmare.

So she told him. Nigel had stopped yelling and was staring at her, his eyes so wide. She’d never seen him look that afraid.