We lost her at twenty-two weeks, which is the furthest any of them got, and she is the only one of the six who was anything other than a word.
And they asked us whether we wanted to see her.
And I said no.
What Saul did.
He said yes.
And I knew that at the time — I was in that bed and I heard him say it — and I have never once, in six years, asked him anything about it.
He was in that room for about twenty minutes.
And when he came back he sat down next to me and did not say anything, and I did not ask, and the next morning we went home.
And in those twenty minutes he held her, and he looked at her properly, and at some point he noticed a mark on the back of her left shoulder.
And six and a half years later a woman at a warming station put another baby into his arms with one shoulder out of a blanket.
