Audrey does not know how long they lie there. Time seems to bend and stretch. Zoe’s breaths become longer, the gaps between them wider. Audrey breathes in time with her daughter, the two of them inhaling in unison as though sharing a single pair of lungs.

Zoe takes in a breath, holds it, lets it out again, and Audrey waits for the next one to come.

The seconds pass—three seconds, four—with no movement.

And then it comes: the slow, laborious inhalation.

Five seconds, six seconds, seven before the next breath. It is a pattern repeated so many times, the rhythm becomes almost hypnotic.

And then Zoe breathes out and Audrey waits for her chest to rise, for the almost imperceptible widening of her lips, for the air to be sucked in slowly as though it has all the time in the world.

Six seconds, seven.

Audrey waits, her own breath static in her chest.

Eight seconds, nine.

She closes her eyes, listening, silent.

Ten seconds, eleven.

It has been this long before, Audrey tells herself. There has been this great gap of time before.

Twelve seconds, thirteen.

She presses her face tighter against Zoe’s, feels her tears slide onto her daughter’s cheek.

Fourteen seconds, fifteen.

Audrey’s arm tightens around Zoe’s body.

Sixteen, seventeen.

She keeps hold of her, keeps her close, needing Zoe to know she is there.

Eighteen, nineteen.

Her lips caress Zoe’s cheek.

Twenty, twenty-one.

She holds Zoe’s face next to hers, tightly, fiercely.

Twenty-two, twenty-three.

She presses their bodies together, will not let her go.

Twenty-four, twenty-five.

Her throat tightens, her eyes sting.

Twenty-six, twenty-seven.

She clings to Zoe as though she may yet be able to fuse their bodies together, may yet be able to transfer her own life to her daughter.

Twenty-eight, twenty-nine.

The silence hurts Audrey’s ears.

Thirty.

Audrey feels the air exit her own lungs, feels her chest collapse under the weight of her grief, feels something empty out of her that she knows will never return. She hears a sound emerge from her throat, something so raw it is as though it must be coming from someone else, something outside her, somewhere she cannot bear to go even though she knows she is already there. Her throat burns, her eyes are hot with tears, her lips brushing over Zoe’s skin, kissing every inch of her.

She presses her body to Zoe’s, knowing that her daughter is no longer there but unable to let her go.

For minutes and then hours—long after Edward comes in, long after he has called the doctor, long after the doctor has written out the certificate to finalize a life so short-lived—Audrey lies next to her little girl, holding her tight, determined Zoe should know that Audrey would never leave her.

And for all the time Audrey lies there with Zoe—all the seconds that pass into minutes, and the minutes that pass into hours—the same single thought repeats silently in her mind, somewhere between a prayer and a lamentation.