“They have a very hard time, Samuel,” she offered gently. “Discussing their medical history is highly inappropriate.” But he was giving her that look that made her feel stupid.

“That was like fifteen years ago,” he said. “But it’s fine.”

“Thirteen,” Winnie corrected with a frown. “Don’t age me.” Samuel glanced up to check her face and seemed to relax at the joke. Winnie was sweating beneath her shirt. She hadn’t realized how hard this would be—parenting. People, for some reason, chose only to highlight the good parts: the cute chubby cheeks and cute little socks—not the temper tantrums and lollipop bribery it took to get them in the socks. Winnie tried to relax, softening her voice. “And you’re right. Adam was mentally ill. He also had PTSD from an incident in prison—” Winnie didn’t tell Samuel how violent the incident had actually been “—and he had a personality disorder and a bunch of other stuff.”

“Why did you stop working there?”

“I had you, silly. I wanted to be a mom.”

“Why couldn’t you have done both?” He almost sounded accusatory. She tried to bat the feeling away. She was projecting her own feelings onto her son.

“I…well…I didn’t want to. You remember that Bible story about Hannah you learned in religious studies a few years ago?”

“Yeah, the one where she begs God for a baby because she’s barren and his other wife is having all the kids.”

Barren, Winnie thought. What a word. “Yeah, that one. I felt like Hannah, I guess. I’d been waiting for a baby for so long, praying for one, and then I got you.” Her own simplistic answer irritated her, like things were ever that easy; but Samuel seemed to accept it.

“You could go back,” he said.

Winnie managed a thin smile. She hated talking about Illuminations. She had no feelings of nostalgia when it came to her former workplace. It had been full on relief when she left, and not just because of what had gone down. Counselors at mental health facilities were overworked and underpaid. The thought of taking Samuel’s suggestion made her want to throw up. She remembered running into one of the other case workers, Dan Repper, shortly after she quit. She’d been browsing the stands at the farmers’ market when she’d seen him approach her out the corner of her eye. Winnie had immediately tried to extract herself from the berry-buying, shoving a twenty into the seller’s hand just as Dan’s nasal voice called out to her.