“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.

That evening, Meg and I undressed, bathed, and went to bed at the same time. It had been such a long while since that had happened. For as long as I could remember, she or I found work or some other reason to stay up well after the other. Lately, it had been mostly me. On several occasions I was not even at home when she went to bed. Though tonight I felt a need to hold her, or to be held by her, and sensed clearly that she too had the same need, we did not come together but lay there in the darkness, facing the ceiling. I listened to Meg’s breathing change as she moved into sleep. She always pushed a tiny stream of air out of a small aperture between her lips with a little pop with each exhalation. There were times when she would feign sleep, but I always knew. Though I never knew why she would feign sleep. I would fight sleep tonight, as I did most nights. I was afraid of dreaming. Perhaps not so much afraid as uninterested.

Ein Lämplein verlosch in meinem Zelt

No one or nothing appeared different as I bought my coffee in the shop behind the library. The little round lady at the register asked me, as she always did, whether I wanted a muffin or croissant with that. Students studied their phones. I walked into the department office to check my mail and I knew something was wrong. Tim, the office manager, looked at me with a blank expression I had never seen on his face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Hilary Gill,” he said.

“Yes?”

His eyes were wet. He was just this side of crying. He looked out the door and down the corridor, then back at me. “She committed suicide last night.”

“Excuse me?”

He didn’t repeat his words. He didn’t need to. I heard him the first time. Had he repeated himself, those words I would not have heard. He readied himself to tell me more, to give me details.

I raised my hand and stopped him.

I walked away toward my office but passed it by, then passed Hilary Gill’s office as well. I did not look at her door.