I had expected, if a moment like this ever came, to fall apart.

To scream, or to cry, or to beg.

Instead, when Brenda said it, a strange and sudden calm came down over my whole body, cool and clear and steady, like a fever finally breaking.

The shaking stopped.

The heat left my face.

I felt, for the first time in that whole terrible night, completely, dangerously still.

“Then I guess he didn’t sign up to be her father either,” I said.

Very quietly.