One of the men left, and returned with the bracelet that would replace my Apple Watch, the one Patrick had surprised me with for Christmas last year. The metal was light, smooth, an alloy of sorts, unfamiliar to my skin.

He trained the counter to my voice, set it to zero, and sent me home.

Naturally, I didn’t believe a word of it. Not the sketches they showed me in their book of pictures, not the warnings Patrick read aloud to me over tea at our kitchen table. When Steven and his brothers burst in from school, full with news of soccer practice and exam results, while Sonia ignored her dolls, mesmerized by her new shiny red wristband, I opened the dam. My words flew out, unbridled, automatic. The room filled with hundreds of them, all colors and shapes. Mostly blue and sharp.

The pain knocked me flat.

Our bodies have a mechanism, a way to forget physical trauma. As with my non-memories of the pain of birth, I’ve blocked everything associated with that afternoon, everything except the tears in Patrick’s eyes, the shock—what an appropriate term—on my sons’ faces, and Sonia’s delighted squeals as she played with the red device. There’s another thing I remember, the way my little girl raised that cherry red monster to her lips.

It was as if she were kissing it.

Chapter Fourteen

FOURTEEN

Finally, they leave.

Reverend Carl slides into his Range Rover; the Secret Service men and Thomas ride in the other cars. Patrick and I are left in the living room with eight empty glasses of water dripping rings on the coasters beneath them.

Nothing has been decided yet.

He’s pacing the length of the room, sweat making his usually gelled-down hair stick in blond clumps around his face. Right now, he looks less like my husband and more like a caged feline. Or maybe a wild dog is the better choice; they’re pack animals.

“They won’t take off Sonia’s counter,” I say.

“They will. Eventually. Think how it would look if she turned up at school without that—”

“Don’t you dare call it a bracelet.”

“Okay. Counter.”

I load the tray with glasses, using only my thumb and index finger so I don’t touch them more than necessary. Shaking Reverend Carl’s hand made me want to scrub myself with lye. “Can’t you do something? You’re the one who called it a trade, so let’s trade. I go to work for the bastards; they let my daughter talk.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Patrick, you’re the president’s fucking science adviser. You’d better be able to do something.”

“Jean.”

“Don’t ‘Jean’ me.” I slam down the glass I’m holding hard, and it shatters.

Patrick’s over like a shot, catching the blood as it leaks from my hand.