“It was a struggle,” he’s saying. “Not for me so much as for my father. I was young. I was terribly sad that Gerard had died, and I loved my ma and pa, but I didn’t remotely understand what they went through. And Pa wasn’t a wordy man.” He bites his lip, remembering. “But each time I got something right, he pounced on it. That’s the boy, that’s my little man. He only got to see the baby because Father O’Neill was there and he insisted. But they wouldn’t let Ma.” He sighs. “So cruel. They feared it would upset her, for crying out loud. How? He was beautiful.”

There is a short pause. I’m aware of my hands gripping each other, the clench of my fingers. Not much else.

“Yvette didn’t see our daughter either,” I tell him. “She held her, but the baby was wrapped up. Yvette couldn’t even see her face. Sometime later, she asked me what the baby looked like. Probably when Bridie suggested to Yvette that you make a picture of her.”

“So you saw the baby, like Pa?”

“I saw her by accident. They didn’t mean to show me.”

“Oh, I see.” Philip looks puzzled. “Yvette said—”

“Yvette didn’t know I’d seen the baby. I couldn’t tell her.”

“Why not?”

“Because the baby . . .”

She was not a sight. She was not. She was not a sight to be seen. I can’t say this. I don’t know if that is true or right. The flash blooms, flares, blinds.

—

Silence for a long time. I don’t move. The light is actually deafening me. Distantly I hear Philip’s footsteps retreat and return. Then, penetrating the glare, the sweep of large sheets of paper over the table. I open my eyes to see Philip gathering charcoal from a glass jar, soft pencils, squashy stubs of eraser.

“After we got home I couldn’t see her anymore. My mind wouldn’t let me. I had nothing to say to Yvette. I could give her nothing.”

Philip shifts his chair, sits down, positions a drawing board so it’s leaning against the edge of the table. “Ready when you are.”

“But I—I can’t. I don’t know . . .”

“James.” He regards me over the top of his board. His expression is really quite stern. “Isn’t this why you’re here?”

The light has a basis in reality. The day it happened was very bright and the room had tall windows. A clean place, naturally, a reek of disinfectant. The people in the room were cheerful, their voices loud and sharp against the swabbed tiled walls and white sinks. The clinking of medical instruments equally so. There was absolutely no shadow, and the structure of everything was revealed.

The people in the room were occupied with their tasks, so they didn’t see me enter.