During dinner Sarah was actually chatty, uncharacteristic for her recent self. She told us about some girls who were visiting her campus from some other local school. She reported that two of them had gotten into a rather nasty fistfight.

“They were such apes, these girls,” Sarah said.

“What was the fight about?” Meg asked.

“I don’t know. Clementine Gilbert said it was all about a boy. But I don’t know. Both of them got sent home. I didn’t really see the fight, but I could sure hear it. They sounded like cats. I saw one of the girls after. Very tall with red hair and freckles. Clear marks of a hooligan.”

We laughed. It felt good to laugh a little. It served mainly to underscore how quiet we as a family had become.

Sarah tired. She became quiet, and we could see a weakness in her eyes. We put her to bed.

In the kitchen, I washed the pots and pans while Meg nursed a mug of tea. The mug was one that was once broken, and the handle had been glued back on. She insisted on using it whenever she saw it.

“I didn’t think the deterioration would be so fast,” she said.

“I don’t know if it actually is fast. I mean, we don’t have anything to compare it to, after all.”

Meg nodded. “Seems fast.”

It was my turn to nod. The house felt too quiet, too still. None of us had laughed in our old way, the way we had tonight, for far too long. We seldom played music in the house, and yet music seemed missing. I felt as if I was dying inside, but I didn’t say that. Even thinking it seemed so selfish as to make me uneasy. I felt an anger toward Meg that I knew was misplaced and unfair, and, recognizing it as such, I was able not to act on it, but not shed it. I wondered if she felt anything similar.

“I want to talk to Dr. Gurewich and ask her when we should expect what,” Meg said. She set her mug heavily down but held on to the handle.

“That sounds right.” The question we really wanted to ask was how long we could expect to recognize our daughter.

A scream found its way to us from Sarah’s room. Meg and I stared stupidly at each other for several seconds before running. When we arrived at the child’s bedside, she was asleep, as peaceful as if nothing had happened. Perhaps nothing had happened. Perhaps everything had happened.