My appendix ruptured at 2 a.m., and I called my parents seventeen times before the world began to blur. My mother finally texted back: “Your sister’s baby shower is tomorrow. We can’t leave now.”

My mouth went dry.

“Who’s on it?”

Richard looked at Gerald.

“Eleanor. And her mother.”

The apartment seemed to tilt.

Gerald set the screwdriver down very carefully.

Richard pressed play.

At first there was only static.

Then my mother’s voice filled the room.

You don’t understand. Gerald will come back.

She sounded young.

Not soft, exactly. But frightened.

Then another voice, older and colder.

Let him. He has no money, no lawyer, and no proof.

My grandmother.

I had only known her as a stiff woman who smelled like powder and judged people’s furniture. She had died when I was fourteen. She had once told me my shoulders were “too dramatic.”

On the tape, she sounded exactly as I remembered.

My mother’s voice shook.

But the baby—

The older voice cut in.

The baby will have a father. A proper one. Richard wants you. His family wants a grandchild eventually anyway. We move the dates. We say premature. People believe what respectable people tell them.

Gerald’s face had gone white.

I could not move.

Young Eleanor spoke again.

Gerald will hate me.

Of course he will, my grandmother replied. Poor men are sentimental because sentiment is all they can afford.

Richard flinched.

On the tape, my mother started crying.