He said it at dinner, plainly, having clearly rehearsed the sentence, and then he put his fork down and waited.

Noah stood up and left the table.

I want to be honest about my own first reaction, which was not what I would have chosen. What went through me was grief — fast and total, the same shape as a phone call.

Ethan is what I named him. Ethan is on a birth certificate and a christening card and a first-grade art project I still have. Eli is what Michael Reeves made necessary.

That is what I thought, in about one second, and it took me four days and a session with Ruthanne to get past it, and I did not say it out loud, and I am glad.

I asked him to explain it and I asked him properly, meaning I asked and then I stopped talking.