Annie has picked Suzy up from school, given her lunch. Now Mrs. Keller wants some quiet time with her daughter, and Annie goes to her own room, lies back, and lets her toes touch the ground, stretching her back. She hears, so faintly from Mrs. Keller’s room, that insipid tune, that Broadway song Mrs. Keller sings to Suzy, replacing the name “Maria” with “Susanna.” But the phones are quiet. Mrs. Keller hasn’t had any guidance from her friends, her analyst. Today of all days, they are silent.

Annie arches back, her hands on her abdomen, and remembers that moment when it all fell together, that swell of something else, something alien and new.

She’s broken out of her daydream by the sound of little footsteps at the door, the knob being turned slowly as if with great effort. Annie waits, allowing Suzy the independence of pushing the door open herself. She emerges holding a pink-and-green scarf, “Pucci” scrawled among the silken swirls. Mrs. Keller’s scarf, the one she was wearing on her head earlier that day.

She putters over to the bed and slides into Annie’s lap, her thumb in her mouth, twisting the scarf between her fingers. It is almost as if she understands, her eyes misty with some self-contained thought that perhaps she knows not to share aloud. She clings to Annie, bending her head to snuggle between her breasts, her drool dangling into the cleavage.

“Mommy wants you,” she says, pushing her hands against Annie’s top to look up at her. Annie nods and plants a kiss on her head.

“Would you like to take your nap here today? In my bed?” Suzy nods slightly.

“But I want Lolly.” Annie scoots Suzy off and tucks her in, fluffing the sides of the pillow, before heading to fetch Lolly, who Annie is sure landed back in Suzy’s bed between lunch and now. Outside her room, the day is still bright and sunny. The large downstairs windows cast a glow across the stairs, the refracting light creating a rainbow on the polished steps. It’s silent, for once. The heat has been turned off. There is no hiss of the radiator. No distant jangling of Mr. Keller’s keys. Annie can barely hear her own breath.

Inside Suzy’s room, however, the light is dim. Annie realizes she’s forgotten to part the curtains, leaving the room with a dusky, stale, unsettling air. For some reason, unknown even to herself, Annie keeps it that way. She feels around the sheets she changed just this morning, for Lolly, who she finds beneath a pillow.