The first tear falls. “And I’ll probably fail, like before. I can’t stop thinking about how I failed you. I play it over and over in my head. I lose you, over and over. I don’t know how long I can keep losing you, over and over.”

She bows her heavy head. “I have no one to talk to, Sunil, only you. And you don’t talk back, no matter how I beg. You were the person I talked to and you should be here now. And you would be, but I couldn’t see the trouble underneath. I didn’t know how bad it was. I didn’t know any better.”

She leans into the silence, waiting, receptive. Surely he knows she needs him more than ever. Surely he will come to her at last.

But all she finds is more silence. The silence that has poisoned her house. That is slowly claiming her marriage. That swallowed up Sunil.

She covers her face.

Then a voice cuts through, hard as stone. No one’s listening, Black Gloom tells her.

No one can help.

You will always feel this way.

Searing tears rise. She lowers back onto the mattress. As she lies there, she sinks into an inward darkness that feels inescapable, ever-lasting. She is crouched at the bottom of a well. No moon shines silver hope above her.

“How do I get out?” she whispers. “Help me, Sunil. Please.”

Toss her a rope. Send her a light.

10.

Kavita descends into the church basement. She has the vague sense that she is back in high school. Something about the wide cement staircase, scent of cleaner, and relentless fluorescent lighting. She can’t help but feel like she is trespassing. But this is nevertheless the place she is meant to be tonight.

She found the bereavement group online. They hold meetings on the first Thursday of every month. Newcomers are welcome. They offer support specific to the type of loss—parent, child, spouse, sibling, and, what caught Kavita’s attention in particular, suicide survivors. It is a new term for her. That’s what she is now, apparently. She didn’t know there was a name for it. She hovers at the bottom of the stairs and peers through the double doors to her left. A pair of elderly women pass her on their way from the washroom and one of them gives her a smile. Inside the large room, by the entrance, she sees a young man, about her age, sitting at a table, doodling on a nametag with a blue Sharpie. His long brown hair is half up, he doesn’t appear to shave very often, and he wears woollen socks inside his Birkenstocks.

Granola, she thinks.