“But first we have to drop in at the Red Cross.”

“Oh. The Red Cross.” She stopped hopping.

“Maybe they’ve found them,” I said.

“Yes.”

I stood up and pulled on my clothes, taking my time with my T-shirt, hiding my face inside of it, until I felt that I had my crying under control.

I held out the bottle of antibacterial hand wash and she accepted it automatically. We both cleaned our hands. Then we walked through the quiet hall of sleeping bodies, out into an equally quiet morning.

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

She took my hand as we approached the Red Cross barracks.

“Do I have to go inside with you?”

“Why don’t you want to go inside?”

“I want to wait outside.”

“It would be nice if you came inside with me.”

“I want to wait outside.”

“But why?”

“I want to play.”

“Play? Play what?”

“Just play.”

She threw herself down on the patch of grass by the entrance and sat calmly on the withered blades that had once upon a time been grass, while the sun beat down on her.

She didn’t make a sound.

Jeanette nodded at me when I walked in, and before I even had time to sit down she said, “I have nothing new for you today, David.”

“Wow,” I said, trying to smile. “That was quick.”

“Sorry. But you don’t need to check in every day. These things take time.”

“I realize that,” I said. “But I wanted to stop by anyway. Imagine if something had actually happened.”

“You aren’t the only one who has to hear this. I say it to everyone: There’s no point in coming every day.”

“But imagine if something had happened last night, that they’d appeared somewhere, even here. Imagine if they were sick.” My voice rose. “If they were sick and alone. Or that they were here—and I didn’t find out about it.”

I caught myself, made an effort to lower my voice.

“Or imagine if you had found out that they were somewhere else,” I said. “At a camp nearby, that we could go be with them right away.”

“You’re in such a hurry,” Jeanette said. “Try not to be.”

“But it’s been almost a month!”

I took a deep breath, about to say something else. But her mouth curled into a grimace and that stopped me. Not that she was mocking me, she just pulled her lips apart, like a smile but without any joy. A grin.

She could have sighed, probably had every reason to sigh. Sitting here all day long with people like me—who thought we were the only ones who mattered.

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s fine,” she said.