Then, during our first family dinner as newlyweds, my four-year-old daughter stood up, pointed directly at Claire, and said:
“She’s a monster.”
Every person at the table froze.
But it was what Ari said next that broke all of us.
Years earlier, at nearly three in the morning, I had been pacing our nursery with a screaming newborn against my shoulder.
Rain tapped softly against the window.
I had barely slept in two days.
And my wife, Sarah, had been dead for only hours.
She had died shortly after giving birth.
She never got to hold our daughter.
That night, Ari cried until her tiny face turned red.
I tried feeding her.
Changing her.
Rocking her.
Walking circles around the nursery.
Nothing worked.
Then I remembered the recording.
During the final month of Sarah’s pregnancy, she had recorded herself singing a lullaby.
She forgot half the words.
She hummed through the parts she couldn’t remember.
