It was around this time I started thinking again about the day-away program that the competent and comely Marlene at Gorsebrook Residential had told me about, wondering if it might not be a good idea to get Kelli started on it sooner rather than later. I’d barely thought about Marlene since I’d made the decision to move home, and told Darlene at Seaside, in so many words, that she could take her empty bed and shove it. But now I remembered how central Gorsebrook’s day program had been in my plans to manage life with Kelli, not to mention how useful it might be in particular now that I had would-be homeowners tromping the house all hours of the day. If I could get Kelli installed at Gorsebrook a few afternoons a week, I thought, I could give her schedule to Jessica and have Jessica book viewings of the house around it.

“Hello, Marlene,” I said into the phone. “It’s Karen Petrie?”

“Oh, Karen!” said Marlene, and I was thrown off. Because the Oh, Karen wasn’t the warm bear-hug of an Oh, Karen I’d come to expect from Marlene. I had been looking forward to speaking with her again, remembering how, when I’d called to confirm that yes, I wanted to officially put Kelli on the waiting list for a bed at Gorsebrook, Marlene had practically cooed into my ear how thrilled they would be to have my sister, how happy they were to have us both “as part of our community,” and I’d hung up feeling warm and buzzy, comforted, like I’d just been sitting by a fireplace, drinking mulled wine, instead of on the phone with the administrator of a residential care facility. There was no question in my mind that I had made the right decision. Such were Marlene’s interpersonal gifts.

But now Marlene sounded distracted.

“How are you?” was all I could think to say. Usually Marlene asked this question first.

“I’m fine, Karen. Thank you. How are you?” The words came out rapidly, like a script, or a perfunctory prayer.

“I’m calling,” I said, “because I was thinking I’d like to get Kelli started in the day program.”

There was a strange hiccup of silence.

“Oh, Karen,” said Marlene again.

“Is everything ok?” I asked.

She heard the alarm in my voice and I, in turn, heard her draw a breath — she was doing everything she could, it struck me, to muster a reassuring whiff of the old Marlene with what she said next.

“I’m so sorry, Karen, you have to forgive me, I’m a little distracted today. Listen, of course, of course we would love to get Kelli started in the program, absolutely.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“We’re having a bit of a crisis here today,” Marlene confessed.

“Oh no,” I said. “Would you like me to call you back?”

“I would,” said Marlene. And then came that strange hiccup of silence again. “We’ve been talking about how to address —” She trailed off, and with that “we,” I started to get the feeling these beats of silence actually indicated brief, whispered conversations with someone else in the room, during which Marlene perhaps covered the receiver with her hand. “You know what, I should just tell you what’s going on right now,” she said.