I was gazing with incomprehension at the baseball when a commercial came on and Trevor inclined his head toward me and said, “Any decisions yet?”

“I called Gorsebrook,” I told him. “The administrator was really nice. She said she can squeeze me in for a quick meeting Monday afternoon.”

“Oh,” said Trevor, still looking at the TV.

“You were right about the acupuncture,” I said. Because I had a quick instinct, based on the tone of Trevor’s oh, that I should follow up by telling him he was right about something.

“If you believe in that bullshit,” said Trevor. “Which I don’t, personally.”

“It seems like a pretty good facility.”

“Yeah, on the surface,” said Trevor. “But you gotta know what questions to ask.”

I took a sip of beer. I had a feeling if I said anything else positive about Gorsebrook, Trevor’s opinions would entrench themselves against it.

“Look,” said Trevor after a while. “Just let me know in advance. I’m happy to clear my schedule and come with you, you just need to let me know in advance next time.”

The game came back on. Trevor watched a few more innings in silence, jaw flexing. When the next commercial break arrived, he stood up, drained his beer, and told me goodbye.

I just sat in front of the baseball for a while, letting the weird tension of Trevor’s leave-taking dissipate. I decided not to worry about it. The beer had made me passive, and passivity felt ok in that moment — better than the usual feeling of wanting to jump out of my skin as the recorded operator droned You don’t know what you’re doing for the hundredth time. Kelli was silent at her window upstairs, likely dozing. The baseball game was the only sound and motion happening in the house. From the screen, disembodied male voices exclaimed to one another, exchanging boisterous theories about what might happen next. I was drawn by the urgency and anticipation in their voices and sat there watching and listening for quite some time. It was like when you sit by the ocean — noisy and unfathomable, offering the same kind of repetitive, raucous comfort.

Had the TV been turned off, I might’ve thought about the fact that I had only two and a half more weeks remaining of the month-long leave I’d taken from work to get Kelli moved out of this house and into Seaside. I might have berated myself for the naivety of having ever thought I could administrate my sister’s future in a single month, when my mother — who was basically Superwoman in a salon perm — had made Kelli’s world her lifelong project. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was aware of it, but not thinking about it, like a mist I was constantly having to peer through to make my way forward, or a dirty windshield I couldn’t be bothered to clean. Getting Kelli settled into Seaside was my entire reason for being here now that Irene was in the ground — her last request. Practically the only thing she’d asked of me in twenty years. And time was running out. I knew that. Yet I couldn’t think about it — it was like focusing on the mist.