Google is his doctor and his therapist. His mother. His obsessive searching has been at an all-time high this past month, ever since that rainy night in June when we sat on the bathroom floor with our backs against the drywall, holding hands and staring at the results of my third pregnancy test.

Then she was a child in an ancient woman’s body in a hospital bed staring out the window at the reeds still snow-covered in March and I was a child in a young woman’s body staring at her. Her tongue and hands, those old weapons, now frozen, all parts of her nearly extinguished, I could have felt peaceful or forgiving or vengeful but instead I felt sorry, terribly sorry, an apology blooming in my chest like a bouquet of knives.

“Have you seen the kids lately, James?” I asked. Not because I wanted to know about the kids. They were doing normal kid things, like going to piano lessons and auditioning for the lead in the school play. But because I couldn’t help but wonder if, in their absence, James had become a tangle of wires left in a junk drawer.

I thought I’d get a monkey soon after The Thing That Was Done To Me. It felt right, like I could prove I can be in charge of something.

Nick stood, his ripped jeans and ratty T-shirt swallowing his lanky frame, and walked over to the stereo. At the press of a few buttons, Radiohead’s “Karma Police” filled the room. It was his favorite song; He was a fan of the entire CD, applauding what he called its “progressive melding of dissonance and harmony” and “lyrical rejection of normative behaviors.” Shelley didn’t really get it but nodded along thoughtfully to his interpretation.

Darling stayed in the back to check the sound level and wait for late arrivals—there were none—and then went back to her desk. She hoped there was a candy bar or some chips in her drawer. She was starving. Her phone was blinking. It was probably her boyfriend, confirming he was going to bring dinner and watch the 8:30.