But what if, I thought, somehow, someone had a video of Dad? Camera positioned on the ceiling of the hospital room, looking down at him with his limbs outstretched like a mounted beetle, gasping for his last breath? Comment from Bender989: If you turn up the volume at 38 seconds you can hear him gurgle.

Well, I wouldn’t like that at all, I decided.

So I didn’t think about it any more.

It was the first week of November, and I was sitting in Dad’s office.

I had worked through most of the ToD’s backlog and now had to sort the posts by ‘most recent’; a digital vulture, circling and licking my lips at the thought of any scrap of rot. Starved and brave, I settled on one that the comments promised was particularly disturbing – a freak accident, a couple driving along when some cargo from the truck up ahead comes loose and crashes through the windshield. Weirdly, the screaming made me feel barely anything at all.

And with my headphones on and my back to the door, I had no way of knowing that Mom had come into the office.

I instinctively slammed my laptop shut when I finally felt her there, but it was too late. She saw. And her eyes glazed over, wide and unnatural as a recently stuffed bit of taxidermy, said nothing as she moved towards Dad’s desk.

Mom and Dad both had the emotional recklessness of a napkin, which had its pros and cons. Dad was sometimes so rational that he came across as unfeeling, and Mom just figured that everything left unacknowledged might just go away. I’d never been shouted at or grounded in a fit of anger. I almost wanted them to do it. Come on. Give me something to work with. A little melodrama for once, drenched in feeling and passion and rage. Rage!

But Mom never did. Especially after Bea. I was sure that had something to do with it too; that part of my life was just another helping of things we found it impossible to talk about, for whatever reason. We wore spacesuits and floated aimlessly through the ether, our radios dead and a soundless vacuum between us. Before, Dad had been the cord that at least tethered us together; now, there was nothing keeping us from drifting to opposite ends of the void.

I tried to make contact. ‘What?’ I asked. It was unnecessary. I already knew what. Only now did I notice the black trash bag in her hand. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I wasn’t sure if I meant in this exact moment or indefinitely. ‘I’m grieving. This is me grieving.’

Mom didn’t say anything. She rifled through the top drawer on Dad’s desk, and emerged with a key.

The key to the patient files.