The summer Saul was four, the summer just before his father died, he would wait in the window for his father to pick him up. He was usually late and sometimes forgot. But that one summer he remembered and was always on time. He’d pick Saul up at four o’clock and bring him back at seven, dropping him in the driveway and leaving without talking to me. I never really knew what Saul did with his father on those summer evenings. Saul would make up stories about incredible fishing trips and backwoods expeditions. I wasn’t surprised he was making them up. That is what children do when they need love, when they wish for reality to be something other than it is. I was mostly surprised I almost believed his stories. It was his longing I believed, because longing never lies. Saul would weep. I would put him in a warm bath. “There, there,” I said. “It will get better.”

The big lie.

His father died six months later.

It was the summer grief pressed in upon me in the way a watermark imprints paper, permanent and imperceptible in certain light.

The doctor is talking.

“It’s a core biopsy because we go into the core of the area of concern. We put a needle in, and then insert an even smaller needle through the tube, if you can visualize this. And then we remove a tiny strand of tissue. We repeat this quite a few times, to get enough tiny strands. Then we X-ray the strands. And we send the tissue to the pathologist.”

It’s probably three hours they’ve had me strapped in here, flipping me around for a few breaks in position. Poking at my breast. Jabbing over and over again, the extraction of the vermicelli tissues. They keep complimenting me on my composure.

Clara squeezes my hand a few times. “How’s your neck? We tried to be careful because of your whiplash. Have a big soak in the tub with Epsom salts tonight. Do you have a ride home? You can’t drive,” she says.

“Athena is coming.” I close my eyes as they poke some more.

Then I think of the newborn photos I have taken in the child and maternity ward.

“That’s it,” Clara says, and then taps me on the shoulder. “Did you fall asleep? That would be a first.” She smiles as she looks away. I remember how she held her dead baby, so perfect and still. She wasn’t crying when we took the photos. Clara wanted the pictures. The only ones she’d have to remember her daughter by, so it wouldn’t just be in her mind’s eye.

Back in the changing area Clara bandages my breast. It’s different from when I gave birth. Saul was born a month early. It didn’t matter who saw me with my legs spread wide open, blood and amniotic fluid dripping out. Or breastfeeding, my porn star boobs, as I called them, huge and swollen, trying to get the baby to latch. It would help with his jaundice. Saul’s father came in only once that week. It was just as well. I was exhausted. The baby nursed every two hours, day and night. He went under the ultraviolet lights to help eliminate the bilirubin causing his jaundice. My breasts would leak as I reached my hand through the small opening in the incubator to stroke his little belly.