“By next Christmas, God willing, there will be a beautiful bassinet right by that bay window!”

She referred to my sister’s hypothetical future child, more than once, as “the next face of the shop.”

I watched this suffocating pressure and, to my shame, mostly felt the old, dull relief of the unmeasured daughter.

At least the spotlight isn’t on me.

Then, one rainy Tuesday afternoon, I saw the frayed wiring under the golden pedestal.

I’d driven Chelsea to her fertility clinic in Fort Wayne because her husband, Paul, had a mandatory work conference.