My Wife Was Seven Months Pregnant When She Stopped Leaving Bed—Then I Lifted the Blue Blanket and Realized My Mother Already Knew What Was Underneath

“Do you want to know if she wrote?”

Clara froze.

Then:

“No.”

So I told the attorney we did not want direct correspondence.

The existing order and institutional rules gave us mechanisms to manage contact.

I did not read the letter secretly and decide whether Clara could handle it.

That would have repeated the same old family pattern in a more benevolent costume.