I would only ever leave this life for my sister. And only temporarily. I didn’t move out of my apartment; I sublet it. I didn’t quit my job; I took a leave of absence. I have every intention of going back after the baby’s born and Scarlett’s settled.

“All right,” I say. “I guess I will go lie down. Maybe take a nap. I like the idea of waking up from a nap to fresh bread.”

“Sweet sleeping,” she says, flicking some flour in my direction.

I hop off the stool too quickly and my side screams. I shuffle slowly toward the stairs. Scarlett doesn’t comment.

I go up the stairs on all fours because it’s easier that way.

Scarlett has always called the guest room “Rory’s room.” She painted it a muted blue and hung vintage postcards on the walls. The bed has a pretty wrought iron headboard; the linens are hotel white. The antique double dresser we shared as kids is in this room, above it the silver-framed mirror I saw my reflection change in as I grew up. There’s a tweed armchair in the corner by the window, next to it a teetering stack of unread books and a small parlor palm. On the nightstand sit a squat lamp and a classic alarm clock. The rest of the house is colorful and cluttered with eccentric artwork and knickknacks and taxidermy and oversized furniture. The rest of the house is Scarlett. This room is me.

I’m too afraid to change out of the clothes that Scarlett brought to the hospital for me—a pair of my Columbia University sweatpants and a long-sleeved Grateful Dead tee, the only article of clothing she and I ever fought over as teens. If I were to undress, to change out of these clothes, I would see.

I don’t want to see the bandages. I dread the bandages.

These clothes don’t smell like hospital, but I do. I smell. They cleaned me up this morning, but I haven’t had a proper shower since yesterday. Since before.

Bad things have a way of severing your life into “before” and “after.” It’s really annoying.

“After you” is never quite the same, so I’ve learned.

Fuck it. I climb into bed as is. I can always wash the sheets.

—

I wake to the smell of bread and the drum of rain on the windows. I yawn. I’m alarmed by the click of my jaw. It’s not so much a click. It sounds like tearing paper, like breaking down cardboard. My chin descends, my mouth opening, opening, opening. The parting is unnatural. There’s a cave in my face.

I sit up in bed, mashing my elbows into the pillow behind me. I look directly in front of me, into the mirror above the dresser. I’m there, inside the mirror, but I can’t see myself because all I can see is the thing on the floor. The mass of matted fur crawling next to my bed, silently creeping on all fours. I can see the bend of its hind legs, the considerable hills of its shoulders. I can see the back of its head, the sinister sharpness of its ears. It’s almost graceful in its movements, careful and calculated. But it’s a predator, so it can’t be graceful, because grace is a virtue, and predator’s virtues all serve a violent purpose, so they really aren’t virtues at all.