The sound of her voice shoved me to the ground as sure as if it had grown hands to push me. “Mom?”

“You know what marrow looks like under the microscope? Like the entire universe, just full of planets.”

“Mom? Where are you?”

I stretched my arms out and rushed around the space like a frightened bird in a cage, crunching numb fingers against the walls, slamming toes against the toilet. I was frantic.

“I am right beside you, my boy.”

After scratching the paint off the bricks, crawling around on my hands and knees and searching the ground, I knew she was being figurative. She meant “beside you” the way other people said “I’m behind you.” They were rarely ever at your back, even when they said they had your back.

“Mom, I can’t find you!” I was sweating, and I couldn’t get on my feet, so I sat hard and leaned against a wall, trying to even out my breath. Lethargy was pouring cement over frustration. I must have been concussed or drugged…maybe both.

“Here. I’m right here.”

“Where?” I couldn’t stay awake, my sore head tipping toward my shoulder.

“I’ll reach for you. Reach back.”

I slid down until my cheek was on the floor. I turned to face the wall and stretched out my hand. And there she was. She grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together. There must have been a vent between rooms, hers and mine. Maybe that was how she’d found me. I brought her hand to my face and rubbed my lips against the cold metal circle of her wedding band.

“Why are you here? Where’s Dad? I found him, you know. He’s alive. We’re alive. We’re alive, right?” I couldn’t project past a whisper, getting softer with each word.

✦✦✦ ✦✦✦ ✦✦✦

In what I can only assume was morning—there was no way to tell time and no sunlight to suggest an hour—I woke up knowing she wasn’t really there, that there was just me and the memory of her, the massive want of her. Cold and stiff on the ground, I woke up holding my own hand, one inside the other, under my cheek. I dragged myself back to the bed, pulled the blanket up to my chin, and understood that until now, I had never truly been helpless. Out in the bush, I could hunt if I was hungry, I could run if I was being chased, I could stand my ground and take a life if that’s what was necessary. I had done all of those. But in here, what could I do? For now, I just closed my eyes and counted the stars that bloomed and arced across my lids, praying on each one that I was really alone, that no one else from my family was locked in here.

My mother returned every now and then in the innumerable dark hours. Eventually, her voice stopped breaking my heart.

“Hey, Frenchie, did you know there are eight hundred billion more cells in your body than there are galaxies in the known universe? Can you imagine that? You’re bigger than everything we know.”