“Is that your daughter?” She pointed a painted green nail at the photograph on the wall above my desk.

“Yes. Her name is Sarah. And that’s my wife.”

“She’s beautiful.”

I nodded.

“Professor Wells, I wasn’t lying about my interest in geology,” she said. “I have been trying to figure out what I’m interested in since I got to college.”

“That’s good.”

“You really are inspiring to me.”

“That’s great. That’s the sort of thing we professors like to hear.” I waited for Rachel to make a move toward the door, but she didn’t. I began to pack up my bag as if to leave. “You’re doing well in the class.”

“Thank you.”

“Is there anything else?”

“I guess not.”

I stood and put the strap of my bag over my shoulder. “Well, all right, then I’ll see you on Thursday.”

“Thursday.”

I did not leave my office but sat back down. I was alone there, and so I did not trouble to straighten my shoulders. I felt weak as I realized I was quite obviously resisting going home. I wondered what bad thing that meant about me. However, that level of self-centered consciousness was quickly dislodged, was swept away in the stream of the present that was my daughter’s situation.

The CBC and chemistry panel showed no anemia, no infections, no diabetes. “However,” Dr. Gurewich said, “there are some vacuolated lymphocytes. That could mean one of several metabolic disorders, something as simple as an acid-base imbalance or some kind of malabsorption problem. The ophthalmologist’s notes say that he saw what could be fluorescent deposits in the back of her eyes.”

“What’s that suggest?” Meg asked.

We were sitting in the doctor’s private office at Children’s Hospital. Her window looked out over a courtyard. I watched a woman push a child in a wheelchair. The child said something that made the woman laugh. I couldn’t hear sounds but could see them, watched her sounds while I waited to hear Gurewich’s response.

“It’s too early to say. I’ve decided to schedule an electroretinogram. I know it seems like a lot, but I want to know everything.”

Meg and I nodded.

“And we’ll do a DNA analysis. So, we’ll have to take a little more blood and a couple of tissue samples.”

“What are you thinking?” I asked. “It sounds like you’ve got an idea of what this might be.”

“Like I said, nothing yet. The EEG is probably near done now, so I’m going to go see Sarah. You can wait in here.” She left.

Meg and I sat quietly for a few minutes. I looked at the things on and around Gurewich’s desk. There was a basket with skeins of yarn and knitting needles on the floor.

“I wouldn’t have taken Dr. Gurewich for a knitter,” I said.

“What do you imagine she’s thinking?” Meg asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“I’m terrified,” I said.

“You don’t seem terrified.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.