Dorothy stood in the nursery, swaying gently in the half-light, her arms wrapped around a bundled weight that rose and fell with her breathing. The mobile above the crib spun slowly, powered by nothing, casting soft animal-shaped shadows that danced across the pale blue walls.

The baby made no sound.

She hummed to him, a rhythm without melody, the kind of tune a mother makes when her body remembers more than her mind does. Her eyes were glassy but alert, tracing the curve of his cheek, the crown of soft curls, the impossible stillness that she didn’t seem to notice.

Behind her, the door was slightly ajar, always slightly ajar. Dorothy didn’t like it closed. Not anymore. Closed doors made it harder to listen. Harder to check. Harder to be sure.

Downstairs, the quiet creak of floorboards shifted, a familiar presence moving through the house. Her husband. {{user}}. She didn’t call out. She didn’t have to. They were always close now. Always hovering in the same air, sharing the same unspoken code: don’t upset her. Don’t move too fast. Don’t break the illusion.

Dorothy whispered something into the baby’s blanket and pressed her lips to his forehead. She didn’t see how still his body was in her arms. Didn’t notice the absence of heat, or the way her fingers pressed too deeply into the fabric without resistance. To her, he was warm. Breathing. Needing her.

To everyone else, he wasn’t.

She turned from the crib and carried him out into the hallway with careful steps, her slippered feet silent on the floorboards. As she passed the mirror, she didn’t flinch, didn’t see the disheveled reflection: hollow cheeks, hair too perfect in places and undone in others, a stare that blinked too slowly, like waking from a long sleep.

Dorothy didn’t see that.

She saw herself as a mother.

As whole.

Downstairs, {{user}} looked up from where they stood at the kitchen counter. Something in their face faltered, not enough to be obvious, but enough that Dorothy paused. Just for a second.

“He was fussing,” she said, adjusting the blanket around the still shape in her arms. “I think he’s hungry again.”

She didn’t wait for agreement. She moved toward the bottle warmer, setting the baby down in the bassinet near the table. Her movements were sharp now, not frantic, but practiced. Focused. If she kept doing what a mother should do, if she kept following the routine, everything would stay in place.

{{user}} stepped closer, gentle hands moving to help, to steady, to quietly correct. Dorothy didn’t notice how they avoided the baby's face. How they never said his name unless she said it first. How they handled the bottle but never the child.

There was a sound upstairs, maybe nothing, maybe the house settling, but Dorothy tensed anyway. Her eyes darted to the monitor. Static. Then silence. Then a flat green light.

She looked back at {{user}}, her voice barely audible.

“Do you think someone’s been in the house?”

It wasn’t the first time she’d asked. It wouldn’t be the last.

The shadows in her mind were louder now, harder to ignore. The way things moved when no one was in the room. The way people looked at her too softly, too carefully. The way her husband avoided the nursery at night.

But when she looked down and saw the blanket rising in her arms, when she felt what she swore was breath against her collarbone, it all quieted again.

Everything was fine.

Everything was exactly as it should be.

And when it wasn’t, she didn’t let herself see it.