I told the nurse to bring Chloe a chair, because her knees had begun trembling and she looked close to falling.
Julian finally muttered that he had seen a mark like that before, then pressed his lips together so tightly they whitened.
Chloe asked where, and he answered with a single name that meant absolutely nothing to me at the time.
"Sadie," he said, and the way he spoke it sounded less like a name than a confession.
I repeated the name, but Julian stared at the floor while Chloe looked between us, clearly searching for some shared family memory.
There was no Sadie in our family photographs, no Sadie at Christmas, and no Sadie mentioned during our countless conversations about children.
He said we should forget the name and discuss everything later, as though a baby could be returned to silence.
Chloe stepped toward him and asked whether Sadie was another woman, her voice breaking on the final word.
