Work had been so busy, Caroline explained, and Hannah no longer went to her dad’s as often since he’d remarried and moved further away. When she saw the bags of candy in the trash she thought at first that Hannah was having friends over after school. It was only when one bag fell out while she was emptying the trash that she realised the candies had been unwrapped, chewed, and spat back into their wrappers. Then she found lists, she said, where Hannah wrote down every item of food she ate in the day and the number of calories. The lists were getting smaller. I still remember one Caroline described. It had four teaspoons of cottage cheese, half a glass of Crystal Light and three slices of apple.

I told her we had to make some sort of plan, to talk to the doctor, and maybe it would take something more serious. ‘Whatever it costs, Caroline, I can help pay for it.’

She tightened her jaw and shook her head. ‘I’ve already talked to the doctor. He said it’s normal for girls her age, and not to be worried. He said I just need to make sure she eats—as if it’s that simple.’

I still wish I’d insisted we got a second opinion, visited a specialist. The next time I saw Hannah she was in the eating disorders clinic at the Children’s National Hospital, along with a bunch of other girls (and a single waifish boy) who competed in their desire to disappear. Who cried at mealtimes and took an hour to eat half a sandwich and seven green beans.

I found a locum for the vet clinic and stayed with Caroline for a month—she’d already used up all her leave. I rode the metro to the hospital every day, taking playing cards, books, magazines.

When Caroline and Andy had grown up I had thought I was done with that awful vulnerability of parenthood, but it was even worse with Hannah, for I felt not only my pain but Caroline’s too—the anguish was doubled. At night Caroline and I would sit with frozen burritos we had microwaved and speculate on what might have brought it all on, looking for a moment when we could have prevented it.

Caroline blamed herself. She remembered how after the divorce her own body image had plummeted and she had wondered aloud to Hannah if she would ever again be attractive to a man.

‘It’s not your fault,’ I said. ‘It’s not like you put her on a diet.’

‘But if I just hadn’t said half that shit I said. I remember telling her to chew slowly, to drink water to make herself feel more full, partly because I was reminding myself. I wish I could go back in time.’