For two full minutes, a woman Grant paid by the hour gave my daughter more tenderness than her father had given her since birth.

Then Grant cleared his throat.

“Elena needs to rest.”

The borrowed bassinet had been placed in our bedroom.

It was worse than I expected.

White paint chipped along the rail.

One wheel squeaked.

The mattress dipped slightly in the middle.

There was a faint yellow stain near the edge.

I stared at it for a long moment.

Grant stood behind me.

“It’s safe,” he said.

“Is it?”

“Elena.”

I turned.

His expression had the dull fatigue of a man who believed his wife’s standards were a personal attack.

“You bought a $19,000 leather chair for your study last month.”

“That was business.”

“Our daughter’s bed is not?”

He ran a hand through his hair.

“You’re emotional.”

I smiled.

It was small, cold, and not for him.

“I just gave birth, Grant.”

“Exactly.”

There it was.

The neat little cage men build when they want to dismiss women.

Hormones.

Emotion.

Exhaustion.

Anything but truth.

I looked at the bassinet again.

Then I looked at my daughter.

“I’ll order one myself.”

“No,” Grant said too quickly.

I turned back.

“No?”

“We’ve already discussed this.”

“We have not discussed anything.”

“My mother feels it sends the wrong message to overspend on a nursery right now.”

I laughed once.

It came out quiet and sharp.

“Your mother feels?”

“Do not make this about her.”

“You just did.”

His phone buzzed.

He looked at the screen, and something in his face changed.

Not much.

A softening.

An eagerness he had not shown in the hospital.

He turned away.

“I have to take this.”

He walked out.

I heard his voice lower as he moved into the study.

That night, while Lily slept on my chest because I refused to put her in that stained little basket, I opened my laptop with one hand.

I logged into the household account.

The joint card showed no nursery purchase.

No crib.

No dresser.

No rocking chair.

But there was a charge from Bellamy Interiors for $87,430.

Delivery address: 14 Chestnut Street.

Our address.

Date: six weeks earlier.

I stared at the screen until the numbers blurred.

Bellamy Interiors was not a discount nursery store.

It was where Boston wives went when they wanted a room to look like a magazine spread and feel like a trust fund.

I searched the order number.

The invoice opened because Grant had used our shared account once months ago and saved the password like a man who did not believe his wife knew how to look.

Custom Italian crib.

Antique gold finish.

Hand-painted celestial mural.

Silk blackout drapes.

Monogrammed linens.