This morning, my sister is sitting on my chest. I’m seven, so much scrawnier than she is. We’re in the closet with the door shut, and I can’t breathe as she pinches and twists and hisses in my ear, “I drowned because of you, so now I get to do whatever I want.”

Usually Hugh is lying here, ready to cocoon me with his arms and rock me back to reality, but this morning, as I fight to breathe, to sit up, to blink, I find my husband sitting on the end of the bed. He’s staring at me as if curious. The light is stretching across the bedroom carpet through the curtains the way it always does on summer mornings.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Seven.” His voice cracks slightly, like a dry branch falling. “Two hours in.”

What if we always talked this way about time? Noon would be midway through; 11:00 p.m. would be “almost over!” As if all of life were something to survive, minute by minute.

I sit up. “Where are the—?”

“Still asleep, believe it or not.” He swallows, his neck bobbing. “They’re fine so f—”

He bites back the word, and I fill it in silently. So far.

“So don’t worry.”

That little edit isn’t much better. I can’t take this.

I bounce out of bed, whistling defiantly, some song from the show the kids were watching last night. Instead of standing at that window, brushing my hair, my calming morning ritual, I open the wardrobe and shove the hangers to one side, my fingers flitting through bright patterns, flowers, stripes, paisley. It’s going to be a sundress day, damn it. I pull out my favorite one, white with huge printed impatiens, and start getting dressed.

Hugh watches me the whole time, grim.

“Weather looks clear.” I twirl to the window, feeling my silk skirt graze my thighs. My hand hesitates a beat before it dares to pull back the curtains, welcoming the sun into the room. No firelight out on Joseph’s Rock now. I doubt there ever was. Just another disappearing nightmare to add to the list.

“It’s always clear,” Hugh says behind me.

I freeze for a second before I realize what he means. It’s always clear on the Day. Isn’t that lovely, then! A nice, bright day to die.

I smother the laughter bubbling in my chest. I need to stop thinking this way, even as a joke. It isn’t healthy. It’s me catching this contagion.

Hugh doesn’t move, just sits there on the bed, looking like he’s carved in marble, heavy enough to drop straight through the mattress, through the floor, through the ground below.

As I tug on my slippers, I lean against the window, and Hugh leaps from the bed, hand outstretched. “Nina, stop. Don’t push on that.”