Nat had taken Adam to the hospital. That had to be it. I called Craig. He called the hospital. She hadn’t come in. We called Nat’s cell phone. It was off. Craig picked up the kids and brought them home. I called the police. Night fell. My mind turned one thought over and over, like a tumble dryer: Mrs. Covet stole my baby.

I was up all night, though I must have drifted off at some point, because I remember dreaming about ladybugs; they were crawling all over me. I woke up thinking about bad luck. On the TV, a documentary was showing: In close-up, an Iraqi woman was tearing her hair. She was screaming, staring into the camera, her face contorted by fury. A blindfolded baby lay in a glass box. I didn’t understand. I tuned in late. The British commentator spoke so fast. There was no medicine for her baby? Something terrible had happened to its eyes. Oh, Jesus Christ. In the desert, men in gas masks jumped off a truck. They carried machine guns. They were on their way here. All these years, without knowing, we have reached our arms around the world, dug our thumbs into that baby’s eyes. We have made him blind. And now that baby’s mother wanted to blind my children. She wanted to slide into their beds while they slept and breathe poison into their little pink mouths. They would wake incoherent, flailing, blind. It was my fault. I remember how smug I felt years ago when I heard the word “sanctions” against Iraq. Such a comforting, peaceful word—like a mother’s hand holding back a flailing toddler. Craig turned the TV off. I couldn’t look him in the eye. It was his mother who had brought Mrs. Covet into our house. His mother who hated me. Craig knew what I was thinking.