She didn’t answer. She was staring at our daughter like the baby had spoken to her in a language only she could hear.
“Honey,” I said. “What is it?”
“I just don’t know why…”
“I’ve seen these eyes before.”
“What do you mean? She just has your eyes.”
Claire started to cry. Not the happy, exhausted crying I had seen five times before.
“Claire, look at me. What are you talking about?”
She shook her head, over and over, tears sliding into her hair.
“I know those eyes,” she whispered again. “I just don’t know why…”
“We can fix it.”
I didn’t understand anything.
I looked at my wife holding the daughter she’d wanted her whole life and realized I barely knew the woman lying beside me. And she wasn’t ready to tell me why.
Claire disappeared into herself. We barely spoke those days in the hospital.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m tired, Sam.”
But she wouldn’t even look at me.
It was too late.
***
The days after Lily came home blurred together. Claire barely held her.
“Claire, talk to me,” I said one night, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Whatever it is, we can fix it.”
She turned her face into the pillow. “You can’t fix this.”
“Then let me try.”
“Please. Just give me time.”
I told myself it was postpartum until I started noticing the hushed phone calls from the laundry room.
I should have asked who was on the other end. By morning, it was too late.
“I’ll be back.”
***
The following morning I reached for my wife, and my hand found cold sheets.
The bassinet was empty. Claire’s keys were gone. Her phone went straight to voicemail.
I called my mom — she lived next door — and asked her to come stay with the boys.
Minutes later, our oldest found me standing in the kitchen.
“Dad? Where’s Mom?”
“Grandma’s coming over. I’m going to find her.”
“She’s not here.”
***
I drove straight to the yoga studio.
The morning class must have just ended. Women were coming through the door with rolled mats under their arms when I pushed past them. Ethan was at the front of the room, wiping down a mat.
He looked up. “Sam?”
“Where is she?”
He straightened. “What?”
“Claire. Where is she?”
“She’s my friend.”
Something changed in his face. “She’s not here.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
I stepped closer. “How long?”
His brow tightened. “How long what?”
“How long have you been sleeping with my wife?”
“She’s losing her mind.”
For a second, he just stared at me.
Then he shook his head. “I have never touched Claire. Not once.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m serious. She’s my friend. That’s it.”
I remembered the hushed calls she’d made from the laundry room.
Suddenly, I knew who had been on the other end.
“I know her secret.”
“Friends don’t call each other in the middle of the night.”
“They do when one of them thinks she’s losing her mind.”
That stopped me. “What does that mean?”
Ethan glanced toward the open studio door, then pulled it shut. “It means you’re asking the wrong person.”
“Then tell me the right one.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Why would she go there?”
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