She says a hurried goodbye to Linda and Wayne, reaching up to embrace them weakly, then watching as they gather her daughters and try to lead them from the house, each one breaking away briefly, running back to kneel at Cheri’s feet, sobbing.

Cheri calls out to Linda, “Take care of them!”

“I will,” Linda promises, her face haggard and despairing. It’s all a jagged blur of grief: the careening house, Katy’s heaving shoulders and Sarah’s stricken face, Wayne’s jacket-clad arm as he tries to usher them from the room, Linda’s own unspoken words of farewell fluttering inside her chest like snared birds.

At the door, Sarah turns and starts back toward her mother again. You can’t just leave a person like this, she thinks. You can’t.

“Sarah!” Cheri says sharply.

Sarah stops. Her mother is sitting in the draped chair, the three men standing in the shadows behind her. You can’t leave a person like this. But she sees from her mother’s expression that it’s too late.

Cheri is leaving them.

When they’re gone, the house is filled with a beautiful, queer silence. It’s like the airy, suspended moment that follows the last reverberating note on a pipe organ. I’m alone, she thinks, her heart suddenly clopping inside her chest like hooves, her head too heavy for the fragile stem of her neck. No family, no friends, no way out except through. She slumps forward in a swoon and then immediately rights herself, overcompensating like a drunk. Please, she thinks, picturing herself erect and composed. I’m sorry.

When the men first touch her, she flinches and cries out but then grows calm as they minister to her. Two of them help her down the hall to a small bedroom, prop her up with pillows to ease her breathing, tuck a rolled-up blanket under her knees, cover her with a thin blue chenille bedspread.

Dr. Kevorkian takes a seat next to her. He explains that the tank is at eighteen minutes, and when it’s at ten, if she’s ready, he will start the procedure. Cheri half closes her eyes and reaches out, entwines her fingers with this stranger’s. She’s beyond words now, transfixed by the images flickering inside her head, left hand gripping the folds of chenille.