She had assumed, she said, that Elena was having an affair, that the pregnancy might not even be Alex’s, that she had been protecting her son from raising another man’s child.

Alex demanded a name.

Beatrice did not have one.

But Elena did.

The unfamiliar man in Cambridge was Sergio, Elena’s older brother, who had flown in from Chicago to stay with her and help her survive a terrifying, high-risk quadruplet pregnancy that she was facing entirely alone.

“You were at our wedding, Mom,” Alex said, his voice gone dead and cold.

“You met Sergio.