After twenty-two weeks of pregnancy, our friends lose their baby one day, but they are not bitter.

They give her a name, Rose.

Later, they celebrate Rose’s birthday with a cake, the same as if she’s alive, right there with them, gurgling and maybe assaulting the frosting and ice cream, eyes mesmerized by the solitary flame signifying a year, while squealing parents and friends huddle around, saying, “Make a wish!” as someone leans over and blows the candle out and the crowd claps and life goes on as normal.

In bed that night my wife leaves her novel on the stand and curls into me, her skin dryer-warm and supple. I say, “Hey, what’s this?” but she doesn’t speak. Our hearts hurdle over each other and it’s to their persistent rumble that my thoughts align with the still-born baby and the one we lost ourselves, and after an eternity of reflection, I tumble into a dark funnel and sleep.

In the morning my wife is gone.

I go to the bathroom and pee first thing as usual, come out scratching my head and find her message written with lipstick across the mirror:

I’m going to find normal

I don’t dress. I get in the car wearing what I’ve had on in bed: a tee shirt and boxers. I cruise the development and circle cul-de-sacs. Neighbors I do not know well eye me through their windows with suspicion. I drive like this for hours.

Around noon, as I’m on the way to the police station, my cell rings and it’s Christina telling me my wife is at their house and she’s asking for Rose, she wants to play with Rose, she’s brought Rose a present, a doll, a used one, the doll her own mother gave her.

When I arrive, Christina leads me upstairs to the nursery. My wife is kneeling in front of the crib and she’s reading a rhyme about magical kangaroos.

She smiles as I sit down. I take her hand. I’m about to say, “I’m sorry,” but she touches her fingertip to my lips and shushes me.

“Let’s take turns reading,“ she says, and we do.

Later, in bed, I think: maybe we should have done what Christina and her husband did, acted as if everything was normal even though it wasn’t, even though our baby died while getting a bath.

My wife blames herself, but I don’t. The doctors said it was SIDS, that the baby died unexpectedly, not of drowning, but for no reason, just stopped breathing. It can happen in a crib, in a person’s arms, or, apparently, a tub.

Beside me, my wife stirs. “Do you hear that?” she asks

“What?”

“The baby. He’s crying.”

“Honey,—“ I start.

But she’s up, moving down the hall toward the bedroom with the new crib.

She’ll be there a few hours, same as the nights before. She’ll read a book and hum a few tunes in the soulless room, but she’ll be back. After a while, she will.