Hilary Gill was waiting at my office door. I suppose that we had bonded somewhat on the field trip, but her presence was still unexpected. Without much of a hello she launched into her request for a favor. It started with, “I was wondering …”

“What do you need, Hilary?”

“Will you look at my data?”

“I’ve got a lot going on at home right now.”

“Just a glance. No rush. Well, a bit of a rush.”

“No promises.”

She put a USB drive into my hand. “Thank you, so much.”

“Okay.”

She started to walk away.

“Hilary.” When she turned back to me, “I can’t make any promises.”

“I know.”

We performed well enough in the scene that preceded the afternoon appointment with the neurologist. We prepared as if headed for a routine visit to the dentist, Meg even reminding Sarah to brush her teeth, a request that made no sense and somehow all the sense in the world. In the car we listened to “Sarah’s” music, always worse in theory than in practice. At least for me. The sappy pop seemed to irritate the poet in Meg, but I had to admit I sort of liked it. While a girl sang a cheery, up-tempo ditty about happily casting off the devastating hurt of lost teenage love, I reached over and squeezed Meg’s hand. She rubbed her thumb against my knuckle. And thus was the only expression of panic during our ride. I continued to be an agreeable audience to my daughter’s tunes and recalled first bringing her home after her birth. I thought as we were leaving the hospital, Are they really just going to let us stroll out of here with this person? But they did. No one warned us about the sounds a baby was likely to make in the night or how they might seem to stare ghostly at you in the darkness. Sarah gurgled crazily while sleeping, causing us to think she was choking to death. I would leap up and rush to her side only to have her noise subside into the most peaceful breathing. When I didn’t tear myself away from the sheets, her gagging would become eerily absent, and so I would spring out to be sure that she was still breathing. Most of my parental sleep deprivation was a consequence of my anxiety over keeping this creature alive. And so, here I was again. When I looked in the mirror at Sarah in the backseat, I found her staring at me, wanting me to make it all okay.

Aythya valisineria. Eleven individuals of this species are represented in the cave. The humerus of this species is distinguished from Aythya americana by the shape of the proximal end. In modern times, the canvasback is an uncommon migrant. It winters on open water.

I suppose anytime someone is seeing a pediatric neurologist, it is given that there is an abundance of anxiety, and so our wait in the outer area was notably brief. The doctor joined us in the examination room almost immediately.