He was not evidence. He was not revenge. He was not my failure sitting in a stroller. He was a baby with blond hair and formula at the corner of his mouth.

Then I looked at Melinda. She wasn’t smiling. Her face had gone pale under her makeup, and her eyes were fixed somewhere near my shoulder, as though meeting mine would force a confession out of her.

That was when I felt the first quiet shift inside myself. Connor was enjoying this. Melinda was surviving it.

I turned back to him, and he waited. I knew exactly what he expected. He expected me to cry, because grief was the language he’d assigned me. He expected me to ask how long, because betrayal always mistakes curiosity for weakness.

He expected me to say something about the child, because he wanted to tell people afterward that I’d attacked an innocent baby.

Instead, I smiled. “Really?”