asked Jacob.
'On a job site. We were clearing for a subdivision. If it wasn't for the cell phone-'
'You mean Mattie didn't call you first?'
'I told Mattie to call 9-1-1,' Renee said. 'What the hell is this? We had enough of that stuff from the police. We're the victims, remember?'
'I'm just trying to understand,' Rheinsfeldt said, her eyes seeming to grow a shade darker and more obscure.
'It wouldn't have mattered anyway,' Jacob said. 'The ME fixed the time of death at around 3:15. Christine must have smothered shortly after Renee put her down.'
'You know the only thing that's kept me from losing my mind?' Renee saw that Jacob was paying attention now. If only he'd paid that much attention in the immediate aftermath, when depression crushed her like God snuffing a cigarette.
'What?' Rheinsfeldt asked. The woman didn't take any kind of notes. Maybe she was arrogant enough to count on memory, but Renee knew that memory could lie. Memory told you all the lies you wanted to hear. You could count on it to deceive you.
'Because it seems like it happened to somebody else. I mean, I know I was there, I know I had the baby, but she was gone so fast, I can tell myself she was never born. And don't preach to me about denial, or the value of acceptance. This is how I grieve-by not letting it have happened, at least not to me.'
Jacob put his head in his hands and spoke to the floor. 'I tried not to blame her.'
'How did you deal with it as a couple?' the doctor asked. 'Focus on each other? On Mattie?'
Renee pondered the different responses. The truth was not an option. 'Jacob threw himself into his work. He pulled away from me, but we each drew closer to Mattie. I took her to visit my parents for a week, and then we took a cruise to the Cayman Islands. The water's so blue there.'
'Jacob wasn't with you?'
'No. That subdivision deal-'
'The Realtor balked,' Jacob said. He sounded sober now, as if the hard hammers of business considerations had knocked him awake. 'We had a nice row of tract houses, half of them pre-sold. The realty company said we were charging too much, that we were cutting our own throats because we were trying to turn over some upscale houses on the other side of town. The company undercut us and siphoned off some of our buyers, and we took a bath on the mortgages. Never build on spec in this town unless you own the bank.'
'But what about Mattie?' Rheinsfeldt said, nonplussed by Jacob's passionate diversion. 'How did you relate to her after Christine's death?'
'I don't know,' Jacob said. 'I just felt so helpless. My old man would have told me to pull my balls out of the sand and keep them swinging. When you get a raw deal, you turn it around. So we-me and my partner-decided it was a good time to buy if it looked like prices were dropping. So we went in on a few lots around town, high-end commercial space.'
'He gave me money instead of himself,' Renee said.
'I figured the best way to focus on Mattie was to spoil her like crazy,' Jacob said. 'And it took money. The cruise, riding lessons, Disney World, shopping trips to Charlotte.'
Renee didn't like Rheinsfeldt's reaction. The counselor's lips curled as if valuing money was somehow distasteful. She had no comprehension of what it meant to be a Wells.
'It isn't unusual to throw yourself into practical pursuits when faced with an emotional tragedy,' Rheinsfeldt said. 'But how did you feel on the inside?'
'Inside?' One of Jacob's eyelids twitched. 'I don't have any inside anymore.'
'Please, Jake,' Renee said. 'Don't change into…you know.'
He stood, paced, stopped at the window. For a moment, it looked as if he were going to snatch up the potted geraniums and hurl them against the wall. He turned, fists clenched. 'You could never understand, not in a million goddamned years.'
Renee wasn't sure whether Jacob was addressing her or Rheinsfeldt, because his eyes kept swiveling in their sockets. She figured the words were meant for her. She'd heard them plenty enough.
Rheinsfeldt didn't flinch, just sat in her chair with professional poise. 'How did you feel on the inside?' she repeated.
'Like my guts were on fire. All the time. I had stomach trouble, diarrhea, pain so intense that Tylenol couldn't touch it.'
'Guilt, perhaps?' Rheinsfeldt's tone was that of a game show host whose contestant was coming up short in the final round.
'No, the guilt was all mine,' Renee said. The tears were hot in her eyes. She didn't try to hold them back. Damn, she was getting good at this. 'I'm the one who put Christine down for the nap, I'm the one who arranged the blankets. I'm the one who brought her into this awful world.'
'Do you really believe it's awful? If so, you wouldn't have had any children in the first place.'
'Mattie was an accident,' Renee said, and Jacob stopped pacing by the window.
'An accident?' Rheinsfeldt sniffed blood in the psychological pool. 'So perhaps that contributed to Jacob's desire to spoil her. Maybe he didn't think-'
'He didn't think. That's the point. We had it all planned, get the business going and get settled, accumulate some wealth, and then talk about having a family.'
'How old were you then?'
'Twenty-two,' Jacob said.
'Twenty-one,' Renee said. 'We know which night we got pregnant.' She looked at Jacob and the pain in his face was worth millions. 'Tell her, Jakie.'
He turned to the window again. The sky was dull and blue, limitless, like her love.
'We always used condoms, even after we were married,' she told Rheinsfeldt, though she was really talking to Jacob, delivering the words as if they were nails in flesh. 'The pill gave me migraines, and the diaphragm and foam were so messy. One night in August, Jacob had gone out for drinks with one of his old college classmates-yes, he'd started drinking again around that time. I think it was the fear of success, but that's a whole other story. Anyway, I don't even know who these classmates were, but it must have been some party, because Jake came in at about four in the morning. It was dark and I was half asleep, but he crawled on me like an animal. I tried to push him away. I'm no prude but I like a little foreplay, plus he didn't put on a condom. He forced himself in.'
'Jacob?' Rheinsfeldt interrupted, as if fearing that Renee was gaining control of the session.
'She liked it,' Jacob said to the window. 'It was probably the best night of her life.'
Renee squirmed. Jacob had been more passionate that night than any other, almost as if he knew he was planting a baby inside her. Almost as if he wanted a child. And some small part of her had accepted it, had pulled him more deeply into her.
The sex hadn't been as intense even when they were deliberately trying for the one that would be Christine. Stinking of whiskey and sweat, tongue like an attacking viper, and body like a weapon, his excitement had swept her up and over the edge of the universe. And she hated his causing her loss of control.
And here he was, about to do it again: make her lose control. She forced herself to think of Christine, small and blue-skinned against the blanket. And Mattie, lost amid the big fire that had burned away the last bridge that connected her to their happy past.
'Three times,' Renee said. 'You wanted to make sure, didn't you, Jake?'
'You didn't fight it,' he said.
'I'm not supposed to fight it,' she said. 'You married me, remember?'
'Everybody makes mistakes.'
'We made them together.'
'A Wells never fails.'
Renee swallowed hard, trying to push the anger down her throat. It lodged there, making each breath an effort. The sudden silence in the room was thick and oppressive. Rheinsfeldt edged forward with serpentine ease.
'Obviously, you loved each other enough to carry the baby to term,' the doctor said. 'And Jacob is a successful businessman. It sounds like you two were getting everything you wanted. What part of your common
