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for the first time, but we both knew that wasn’t what happened.”
    He swallowed hard and sipped his wine again.
    “It was SIDS,” he added. “We found her…in her crib.”
    I sat back in my chair. “Oh, God, Jake, I’m so sorry.” Neither of us spoke for a moment. “How old was she?”
    “Four months.”
    Taking a deep breath and letting it out, I leaned forward and covered his hand with mine. “I don’t know what to say.”
    He waved a dismissive hand, as if it wasn’t necessary for me to say anything because it wouldn’t make any difference anyway.
    “You didn’t want to try to have more children?” I asked after a time.
    “Not after living through that nightmare. As for Chelsea, she just wanted out of the marriage. She wouldn’t even talk to me. It was like she hated my guts. I think she hated herself, too.” He paused. “The guilt… You can’t imagine it. You can’t help but blame yourself and in your mind you go over and over all the things you could have done differently. Everything you did wrong. You just feel so much anger over how things worked out. What I really wish is that we could have leaned on each other more instead of feeling bitter toward each other.”
    “You were young,” I said.
    He nodded and took a breath. “Everything just got so screwed up. I couldn’t stop any of it from happening. That was the worst part. I had no control over anything.”
    *
    As I sat on the sofa rubbing Jake’s back, I recalled our conversation from five years earlier and understood completely why he was so frightened about this.
    But that was a long time ago— and I’m not Chelsea .
    “It won’t be like before,” I assured him. “I promise I’ll be able to handle this. And it’s highly unlikely that something like that would happen twice to the same family. Think about it this way: The odds are in our favor. But even if it did happen, I’m strong and so are you. I love you more than anything in the world, and no matter what happens, we’ll get through it, together.”
    Jake leaned forward, rapped his knuckles on the coffee table and gave me an anxious warning look. “Please knock on wood when you say things like that.”
    I immediately leaned forward and knocked.

Chapter Thirteen

    Later that night

    It was sometime after 10:00 p.m. when I knocked hard on my sister’s apartment door. “Sylvie! Let me in!”
    Jazz music was blaring inside so I knew she was there, but I’d been knocking for the past five minutes and she hadn’t answered.
    Her hysterical phone call earlier had sent me into a panic and my blood pressure was surely skyrocketing by now. Jake had been called in to work so I had no choice but to hop in the car and drive over there as fast as I could.
    Just then, the door across the hall opened and a thin, elderly woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth peered out at me. “She’s been playing that music for an hour. I called the super but he’s not answering either. That girl’s going to get herself kicked out of here if she keeps that up.”
    “I know, I’m very sorry,” I replied. “I’m her sister. I’ll talk to her.”
    “If she ever opens the door.”
    At long last, the safety chain jangled across the track and the door opened. “I was taking a shower,” Sylvie explained defensively before I could say a word.
    I took in her overall appearance. She wore a blue terrycloth bathrobe and had wrapped a pink towel around her head. Her mascara was smudged sloppily under her eyes.
    “Are you okay?” I asked.
    “Do I look okay?” she testily replied as she opened the door wider and invited me in. Behind me, the neighbor across the hall shut her door.
    A moment later, I stood in the tiny kitchen of Sylvie’s one-bedroom apartment, watching her pour herself a glass of white wine, full to the brim.
    She tossed the empty bottle into a recycling bin with a clatter. “Another dead soldier,” she said flippantly.
    I bowed my head and took a deep breath, for I