He wanted me to pay him back for the fertility appointments that his own forged records had rendered a farce.

Every one of these things, I noted, and dated, and filed.

Each public boast was a brick I did not have to carry myself; they were building the case against themselves faster than I ever could have, out of sheer confidence that no one was keeping score.

And in the meantime, in a quiet wing of the Hartwell Center, Dr.

Phoebe Hartwell had begun my fertility protocol — the real one, the one my body had always been capable of responding to — because Arthur had arranged for me to be seen through the clinic’s charitable veterans-family foundation.

I did not understand, yet, how a retired neighbor with a cane had the standing to arrange such a thing.