“Do you know who I am?” I asked.

She ignored the question.

I got her into her robe and we moved to the kitchen, where I poured us bowls of cereal, Grape-Nuts. We sat beside each other at the table, facing the window and a view of the hills. Sarah managed to feed herself a couple of bites, and then she stopped eating, I thought, because of fear of attempting another. Her hands were failing her again.

Basil came over and pressed his head against Sarah’s leg. She reached down and absently scratched him behind his ear. An automatic action that betrayed the person inside the shell. I was warmed by it, saddened by it.

“I know what,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I got up and went to the study, where I grabbed the board and chess pieces. At the table I was excited to see that Sarah recognized the board and the pieces. Though she fumbled with each one, she was able to place them correctly. She moved first. The game moved forward predictably, conservatively until she attempted to use a knight. She grabbed the horse and hovered it over the board, finally putting it down well away from any legal square.

I said nothing, didn’t correct her, and went ahead and made my move.

She was somewhere else now. Whether it was a seizure, I didn’t know. I sat with her, watching her, detecting a slight tremor in her right hand.

“Is it my move?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m tired. Daniel mopped the floor yesterday.”

“He did?” I looked at the floor. I didn’t know who Daniel was, but the floor was in need of mopping. “He did a good job,” I lied.

“Daniel did it.”

de dicto/de re

Of all possible worlds this was the one in which I had landed. I wondered how years passed for parents who lost children, how these parents navigated birthdays, Thanksgivings. Would my imaginary daughter grow older in my dreams? Would she graduate from high school and go to college? Have babies? Would my imagined child sit beside my deathbed and allow me to thank her for completing my world? However brief the time we shared. My daughter came to me in every nighttime dream, and I anticipated the self-loathing and guilt that would come years later when one night she would fail to appear, or rather, I would fail to conjure or summon her.

de se

Meg came into house through the kitchen door with a tray of two coffees and a paper sack of bagels. “Well, look who’s up,” she said.

Sarah got up and walked to Meg. “Thank you,” she said, taking the bagels.

I glanced down at the chair beside me and noticed the blood-soaked cushion. “We have a small problem,” I said.

At that moment Sarah turned away from Meg to move to the counter. Meg saw the child’s bloodstained pants.