The same man.

The same baby.

The same room.

Nothing had changed in the world between those two halves of a minute except that a nurse had unbuttoned an onesie, and my husband had seen a mark the size of a thumbnail, and had chosen — instantly, without a single question — to believe the mark over his wife.

People ask, when I tell this story, how a man could turn that fast.

I used to wonder too.

I don’t anymore.

He didn’t turn.

The suspicion had always been there, folded up and waiting inside him like a letter he’d written years ago and never mailed.

All the birthmark did was give him a reason to open it.

And I have learned that this is the truth about most sudden cruelties: they are not sudden at all.

They are old things, finally given an excuse.

Chapter 2 — Next Time

I hadn’t wanted to be pregnant again after Anita.