After picking up Sarah from school, I took her for a short hike in the hills. It was unusually cool, especially as we gained some altitude. However, the sky was cloudless, cerulean, and brilliant. It was that bright California light that I often found harsh and disliked. We spotted a few birds, but then Sarah seemed to grow listless. She began to space out more and more and then suffered one of her seizures, one that lasted somewhat longer than any we had observed. Needless to say, our walk down took considerably longer than the trek uphill. I had not taken my phone with me, and so we returned to the house to find a worried mother. She became more so when she saw my expression.

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.