The Wardens delivered you at dawn, swaddled in regulation grey. Decades of life had been rewound, but I would have known your face anywhere. The fold of your ears, the birthmark on your left eyelid—I had kissed those a thousand times.  

“Do you accept Guardianship of this baby?” they asked, holding out the paperwork over the threshold of my door.

I hesitated. Your eyes caught mine and you reached out your little fingers towards me, but you showed no recognition of who I was. The woman who used to be your wife. Could I love you another way? My skin pricked. Ma’am? I nodded and signed the papers in silence—none of the pomp usually reserved for a new life. When they handed you over, I held you so tightly I felt I could absorb you into my body. And then we would never be apart again. I watched as they retreated down the building corridor. Would they drive to the next place with a wagonload of tiny criminals? Who else would take these monstrosities? 

As I carried you in, I felt something hard under the blanket you were wrapped in. It was a plastic zip tie looped on your ankle with a tag that said Chrono ID RC-1674. I laid you down in the living room next to an unopened cardboard box: Department of Rebirth and Reintegration – New Baby Starter Kit for Guardians. They sat in the middle of the room surrounded by other boxes labelled kitchen stuff, books, coats. A life restarted. A move across the country to get away from the disgusted faces of our families and friends. How could he have done that to those women? And how did you not know? I rummaged in the kitchen box until I found a long, thin knife. He never professed his guilt—not even to me.  Now his black tar clung to me too. I leant over you, holding the cold metal in my hand, watching your body rise and fall with each breath—and cut the tag. Once I made the decision to stand by him, people avoided me like I carried the plague. His punishment was destruction and rebirth as you. Mine was self-imposed isolation and raising a child alone. But I could make this right. I would be his rehabilitation. 

By the afternoon, I was exhausted and had laid down in the bedroom for rest, leaving you in the bassinet in the living room. You had cried constantly for hours needing diaper changes, more milk, and a million other things I could not fathom. His needs had always outweighed mine too. How could I have missed what he truly was? An incubus wearing the mask of my husband. I wanted to search for him in you. Was he still lurking? At the bedroom door I dropped to the floor and crawled slowly towards you like a stalking tiger downstream until I found myself above you, my arms on either side of your squirming body. Your fingers and toes were flexing in little uncontrollable movements, like a flame struggling in the wind.  

That evening I found your bath in the Starter Kit box. I placed it in the bathtub, carried you to the bathroom, and turned on the tap. I lifted you in and watched your skin slide under the water. If I washed you long enough it might peel off. A shiver raced through me. I noticed a new mark on your right arm just below your shoulder. A black symbol an inch wide, the shape of a circle broken in three places. Arrows at the end of each line pointed clockwise. I placed my finger along the top line and traced it around as though you were a wind-up toy. I clenched my teeth and pushed harder into your skin until I was jabbing you, turning your skin red. Your cry startled me, turning into full tears and a gaping mouth wide enough to swallow me whole. 

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” I whispered. I lifted your wet body and wrapped you in a towel against my chest. Please don’t take him away again. I’m so sorry. One day you will know what that symbol means. One day you will ask why.