My wife died giving birth to our daughter, and I hated that baby from her very first cry. Six weeks later, I walked into her room determined to let her cry herself out, until I saw something tied around her wrist. It was a little red bracelet. I hadn’t put it on her. And under her pillow was my dead wife’s cell phone, powered on.

Marina’s voice came through raspy and low, with that specific tremor I recognized from when she was trying not to cry.

I stood frozen by the crib, holding the phone as if it were a lit candle. The baby, April, was no longer crying. She had her wrist raised, the little red bracelet barely shimmering in the dark.

“Don’t be mad at my mom,” the voice continued. “I asked her not to say anything until you were ready. And I knew you wouldn’t be ready the day they buried me.”

I felt a blow to my chest. My mother-in-law. Mrs. Elvira had been coming into the house every afternoon with her rosary, her swollen eyes, and her black shawl. I let her in because I felt too bad to turn her away. But I never imagined she had touched Marina’s things.

“Ignacio, my love, listen to the whole thing. Don’t pause this. Don’t throw the phone. Don’t go running out like you do when something hurts.”

I pressed a hand to my mouth. Marina knew me even in death.

“April didn’t kill me,” she said. “Our daughter didn’t take anything from me. I was already in danger before.”

The room began to spin. I sat in the chair next to the crib—the chair where Marina said she was going to nurse with a blanket over her shoulders. The wood creaked under my weight. April moved her feet inside her swaddle.

“At thirty-two weeks, they told me there was a problem. I didn’t tell you because that same day, I saw you crying in the kitchen, hiding, while you were putting her crib together. You said for the first time in your life you felt like God was giving you something pure.”

I closed my eyes. I saw myself there, screwdriver in hand, pretending I had sawdust in my eye.