This afternoon, as I wait for Sonia’s bus to snake along the lane toward our bungalow, I hear every sound. Not the sounds I used to hear: not the CNN reporters droning politics from the mini-television in the kitchen; not John, Paul, George, and Ringo telling me through the stereo speakers they want to hold my hand; not my own voice singing—badly, I’ll admit—along. I hear the wet slap of the dough as I knead it into submission, the deafening hum of the refrigerator, the high-frequency whine of Patrick’s computer through the locked door of his study. I hear my own heartbeat, steady, incessant.

There’s the motor now, the Doppler effect amping up the frequency as the bus approaches. Already I have my three words planned for when Sonia arrives: Mommy loves you. More may be said later, but this is enough for now.

I place the dough in a large glass bowl for its second rise and towel off the flour that’s stuck between my fingers. Should have taken off my ring, but I forgot. Then I force on a smile—not too wide, not too clownish; I don’t want it to look like a bad makeup job—and head for the door.

Sonia leaps from the bus’s steps, waves to Mr. Benjamin before he drives off toward his next drop-off point, and covers the hundred feet between bus stop and porch like an adrenaline-charged feline. Normally steady and deliberate, she’s got a bounce in her this afternoon, a jitterbug type of anxiety. My girl is shiny with excitement as she leaps into my arms, the paper she’s holding grazing my left ear, her downy cheek sticky and sweet with a glaze of chocolate.

“Mommy loves you,” I say. Pulse, pulse, pulse. I’ve hardly registered my own words when she breaks the hug.

“Won prize!” Sonia squeals, thrusting the paper into my hands, pointing to her mouth, licking at it with a pink tongue. When I wrinkle my eyes at her, she makes three stabbing motions with her index finger at the smear of dried ice cream lingering at the corner of her mouth. I take her hand and move it away from her mouth, shaking my head. She forgets, sometimes, about the cameras.

And Steven.

Sonia points to her mouth again, desperate to make me see the chocolate smear, and again, I press her hand down, holding her fingers in my fist. A few seconds of pointing or gesturing at home might not matter—unless it becomes a habit. A single, painful image of Sonia doing this in public flashes in front of me—or worse, in front of Steven the goddamned Spy Kid. I squeeze her fingers a little more tightly while my other hand turns over the envelope she’s brought home.

On the front there’s a label, addressed to Dr. Patrick McClellan. And, of course, the envelope is sealed.