"Almost" means "not." "We almost made it" means we didn't make it. "She's almost finished" means she's not finished.
Which means, by implication, that "I did not kill our child today" could mean "I almost killed our child today." Of course, there's a good chance that, not being told, you'd never know that.
Life is surely full of such almosts. Unknown almosts.
In the version of the story of the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22) that I grew up with, there is not one mention, from beginning to end, of Isaac's mother.
If we are to take the text at face value, Abraham almost slays his son, and Sarah's son, without consulting with her, without even telling her.
I began to wonder what it would be like to tell this story from the mother's viewpoint—but, upon consideration, realised that it would be a story about not knowing a thing, about a tragedy nearly happening out beyond the visible, as mundane life proceeds in the foreground.
It would be a tale of an unknown almost.
The story I ended up with is called "Murmurs in the Moiré", and it has just been published by Press Pause in their fourth online volume. My understanding is that a print version is also in the works. Read it here, and read their whole issue too.
(As it happens, purely by coincidence, three stories of mine have been published three days in a row in diverse venues. Go ahead and throw your hats on the ice, folks.)