Luke tried to bring me around by telling me that Penny wouldn’t want me to be worrying about her. This only showed how little he understood my sister; her only comfort these days seemed to be other people worrying about her. Why else would she share all these details online? But then again, it was something new moms just did, right? Isolated at home, they sought out community online. Nothing wrong with that. There’d been a time when Penny had cared about other things—when she’d had hobbies and friends—but those other things had been swept away by Ava’s illness. But what mother wouldn’t be consumed by the constant unexplained illness of her infant daughter? At that point, I still imagined that we were moving toward a future in which Ava was a happy, healthy little girl and Penny would resemble herself again. Some days, I felt like I was holding my breath until that future arrived.

Penny existed in a constant state of emergency and I would abandon whatever I was doing to pick up her frequent calls, which were dominated by the minutiae of Ava’s health. Given her line of work, there seemed no end to the various treatments, therapies, and courses of action Penny could find to experiment with. She often seemed to know more than the doctors treating her, and several times lost patience with her pediatrician and moved on to another one.

To the outside world, Penny’s determination was admirable. The Greek chorus of Penny’s Facebook page was in agreement that she was a good mom, the best mom, her little Ava was lucky to have her. And these moms in the chorus, they understood. Many of them seemed to have sick kids themselves, and Penny appeared to spend no small amount of time giving them the benefit of her medical expertise.

They never would have said anything at the time, but my parents were uncomfortable about Penny sharing all of the details so constantly. Every time they ran into someone they knew—which was all the time in our small town—they were full of concern over Penny’s latest post. Whenever I was home, I had a similar experience. People seemed both horrified by the circumstances and yet oddly ravenous for the details. These were followed by the platitudes about people they’d known with sick kids who’d had stunning turnarounds. According to these stories, the more imperiled the child was in babyhood, the more boisterous, robust, and brilliant they were later on, as though being a sickly child were somehow a harbinger of good things.

And in this sea of concerned strangers and acquaintances, where was Emily? Where were Penny’s other friends, the ones I’d last seen dancing at her wedding, full of joy?