They were laughing about something small, something that didn’t matter.

I realized I had never heard Mason laugh.

I couldn’t have told one son’s cry from the other’s, or which lullaby helped Hazel sleep.

They existed as names in a report and photographs I had not yet been allowed to see.

At four-thirty, my phone vibrated.

The procedure had gone as planned.

The doctors would monitor Hazel overnight.

I put my head in my hands and cried behind the newspaper I’d bought for no reason.