I Was Told My Newborn Had Died—Then My Eight-Year-Old Son Asked Why Daddy Had Paid Aunt Rachel to Take the Crying Bundle

“They’re very good ears.”

He rubbed one out anyway.

The small concentration steadied him.

It steadied me too.

I could watch his hand move without turning every movement into a sign of distress.

Across the room, Douglas spoke with an investigator.

I could not hear the whole conversation, and I resisted trying to interpret it from the direction of his shoulders.

The records would matter.