I dream it is winter. I’m standing on the sidewalk in the quiet of night watching lush, velvety flakes melt onto concrete steps, car windshields, and painted benches. I am a nine-year-old with happy bruises on my shins and silk ribbons in my hair. I catch the falling snow on my tongue because letting it fall to the ground seems the crazier thing to do.

I drift in and out of sleep all night. Awake at four o’clock in the morning, I decide to get up and go squeeze in a run. Overnight, rain has slicked the city.

When I return, I find Mom in the living room.

“You’re up,” I say. Her feet are in the air, her weight balanced on her shoulders. “Correction. You’re upside down.”

With a graceful scissoring motion, Mom’s legs return to the floor. She sits cross-legged, her face flushed.

“You put the twenty-something-year-olds at the studio down the street to shame.”

Her bangs cling to her moist forehead.

“Eh. I don’t think I have much in common with those LaLaLime gals,” she says, wrapping a towel around her neck. She points to Clay Porter’s book on the coffee table. “Is this what you’re reading now?”

“Yes, he did a talk downtown,” I tell her. Pouring myself a glass of water, I try to finish my thought before I take a sip. “The way he writes about the people affected by the combat, the children racing to the top of a heap of rubble, it’s like . . . it’s like he shows you the tiny flower growing through cracked concrete.”

Mom picks up the book and turns it over to look at the back cover.

“I’m going to look up his articles. I wonder if he heard anything about the investigation or a grave while he was there,” I say.

“Maybe,” she mumbles.

I shower and step back into the living room to find her with her laptop open, the screen casting a white glow on her face.

“Well, it looks like Mr. Clay Porter doesn’t sleep much either,” she says.

Drops of water fall from the ends of my hair to the shag rug beneath my feet. I take two steps toward Mom and see that Clay has replied to an email she sent him moments ago.

I walk through the oncology unit. In my hands is a muffin from the cafeteria and two candles I found in the kitchen of our clinic. Marilyn, an interior designer, was admitted early this morning for abdominal pain. The admitting physician gives me an update and smiles at the muffin and candles in my hand.

The hallway smells like aluminum foil and gravel, like plastic packaging and a veterinarian’s office. Sometimes the scent hits me so strong that I spritz orange oil onto the inside of a face mask and keep it hanging around my neck.