Martha gasped. You felt your whole body go hot with instant anger, the kind that comes fast when a stranger speaks aloud the thing you’ve been hiding from yourself in more expensive language for months. You took a step toward her.
“You don’t know anything about my wife.”
Helen did not flinch.
“No,” she said. “But I know what grief smells like when it’s rotting instead of healing. And these babies know it too.”
You stared at her.
Outside, thunder rolled somewhere beyond the west lawn, low and heavy over the Hudson. Inside the nursery, the silence stretched with a pressure of its own. Peter’s eyes moved from Helen to you, then back again, as if he were waiting to see which one of you actually belonged in the room.
Martha was the first to speak.
“Señor Marcus,” she said quietly, “maybe we should go downstairs.”
“No,” Helen said.
You both turned to her.
