That she had believed it, because she wanted to believe it, because it let her do what she wanted to do without looking too closely at the child it was happening around.

Chapter 6 — A Pattern

“How many times, Yvette?” I asked.

“How many times have you been in my house while I was at work?”

She wouldn’t give me a number.

She only said, in a small wrecked voice, “This wasn’t the first time.” And then, because the morning had apparently decided to show me all of itself at once, she gave me the last piece: that Gideon had already asked her to come over again that very night, because he knew I was scheduled for another shift at the hospital.

I sat on the shoulder of the road with my son awake now behind me, clutching his elephant, watching me with those big careful eyes, and I understood that I had not stumbled onto a single terrible morning that two people bitterly regretted being caught in.