Twenty years earlier, during our honeymoon, Richard had walked out of the hotel bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

It was the first time I had seen him shirtless long enough to notice the tattoo.

A beautiful young woman looked up from his chest.

Dark hair fell over one shoulder.

Behind her ear was a rose no larger than a thumbnail.

“Who is she?” I asked.

Richard glanced down as though he had forgotten the tattoo existed.

“Nobody.”

“Nobody gets tattooed over your heart, Richie.”

He laughed and pulled me into his arms. “She’s nobody you know. I had it done years ago.”

I trusted him completely.

I held onto that explanation through five unsuccessful fertility treatments. I clung to it again when the doctor gently advised us to stop trying.

But I believed him most deeply on the morning we carried home a premature baby girl with dark eyes, a fierce cry, and a cream-colored blanket tucked around her tiny legs.