The Day Before

My first son died one day before his due date.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. A diagnosis that explains nothing. “Sudden” means “we don’t know why.” “Syndrome” means “we named it so we’d have something to put on the paperwork.” Medicine is good at naming things it doesn’t understand. That’s how it saves face.

I’m not going to describe the details. They don’t belong in this book. Or—they do, but not the way you think.

Here’s what in this story bears directly on the rest of the book’s chapters.