n the weeks following her father’s death, Meredith held herself together by strength of will alone. That, and a schedule as tight and busy as a boot camp recruit’s.

Grief had become her silent sidekick. She felt its shadow beside her all the time. She knew that if she turned toward that darkness just once, embraced it as she longed to, she’d be lost.

So she kept moving. Doing.

Christmas and New Year’s had been disastrous, of course, and her insistence on following tradition hadn’t helped. The turkey-and-all-the fixings dinner had only highlighted the empty place at the table.

And Jeff didn’t understand. He kept saying that if she’d just cry she’d be okay. As if a few tears could help her.

It was ridiculous. She knew crying wouldn’t help, because she cried in her sleep. Night after night she woke with tears on her cheeks, and none of it helped one bit. In fact, the opposite was true. The expression of grief didn’t help. Only its suppression would get her through these hard times.

So she went on, smiling brightly at work and moving from one chore to the next with a desperate zeal. It wasn’t until the girls went back to school that she realized how exhausted she was by the pretense of ordinary life. It didn’t help, of course, that she hadn’t slept through the night since the funeral, or that she and Jeff were having trouble finding anything to talk about.

She’d tried to explain it to him, how cold she felt, how numb, but he refused to understand. He thought she should “let it out.” Whatever the hell that meant.

Still, she wasn’t trying very hard to talk to him, that much was true. Sometimes they went whole days with little more than a nod in passing. She really needed to try harder.

She rinsed out her coffee cup, put it in the strainer, and went to the downstairs office he used for writing. Knocking quietly, she opened the door.

Jeff sat at his desk—the one they’d bought at least a decade ago, dubbed his writer’s space, and christened by making love on it.

You’ll be famous someday. The new Raymond Chandler.

She smiled at the memory, even as it saddened her to think that somewhere along the way their dreams had untangled, gone on separate paths.

“How’s the book going?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“Wow. You haven’t asked me that in weeks.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Meredith frowned at that. She’d always loved her husband’s writing. In the early days of their marriage, when he’d been a struggling journalist, she’d read every word he wrote. Even a few years ago, when he’d first dared to try his hand at fiction, she’d been his first, best critic. At least that was what he’d claimed. That book hadn’t sold to a publisher, but she’d believed in it, in him, heart and soul. And she was glad that he’d finally started another book. Had she told him that? “I’m sorry, Jeff,” she said. “I’ve been a mess lately. Can I read what you have so far?”

“Of course.”

She saw how easy it was to make him smile and felt a pang of guilt. She wanted to lean down and kiss him. It used to be as easy as breathing, kissing him, but now it felt strangely bold, and she couldn’t quite make herself move toward him. She mentally added Read Jeff’s Book to her To-Do list.

He leaned back in his chair. The smile he gave her was a good effort; only their twenty years together allowed her to see the vulnerable underside to it. “Let’s go to dinner and a movie tonight. You need a break.”

“Maybe tomorrow. Tonight I need to pay Mom’s bills.”

“You’re burning the candle at both ends.”

Meredith hated it when he said ridiculous things like that. What exactly was she supposed to stop doing? Her job? Caring for her mother? The chores at home? “It’s only been a few weeks. Cut me some slack.”

“Only if you cut yourself some.”

She had no idea what he meant by that, and right now she didn’t care. “I gotta go. See you tonight.” She bent down, patted his shoulder, and left the house. She put the dogs in the fenced part of their yard and then drove down to her parents’ house.

Her mother’s house.

The reminder came with a pinch of grief that she pushed aside.

Inside, she closed the door behind her and called out for her mother.

There was no answer, which was hardly a surprise.

She found her mother in the rarely used formal dining room, muttering to herself in Russian. On the table, spread out in front of her, were all the pieces of jewelry Dad had bought her over the years, as well as the ornately decorated jewelry box that had been a long-ago Christmas gift from her daughters.

Meredith saw the mess grief had made of her mother’s beautiful face: it had sucked in her cheeks and made her bones appear more prominent; it had drawn the color from her skin until her flesh nearly matched her hair. Only her eyes—startlingly blue against all that pallor—held any semblance of who she’d been a month ago.

“Hey, Mom,” Meredith said, coming up to her. “What are you doing?”

“We have these jewels. And the butterfly is somewhere.”

“Are you getting dressed up for something?”

Her mother looked up sharply. Only then, when their gazes really met, did Meredith see the confusion in those electric-blue eyes. “We can sell them.”

“We don’t need to sell your jewelry, Mom.”

“They’ll stop handing out money soon. You’ll see.”

Meredith leaned over and gently scooped up the costume jewelry. There was nothing of real value here: Dad’s gifts had always been more heartfelt than expensive. “Don’t worry about the bills, Mom. I’ll be paying them for you.”

“You?”

Meredith nodded and helped her mother to her feet, surprised at the easy acquiescence. Mom let herself be led up the stairs easily.

“Is the butterfly safe?”

Meredith nodded. “Everything is safe, Mom,” she said, helping her mother into bed.

“Thank God,” Mom said with a sigh. She closed her eyes.

Meredith stood there a long time, staring down at her sleeping mother. She reached out finally and felt her brow (it wasn’t hot), and gently brushed the hair from her eyes.

When she was confident that Mom was sleeping deeply, she went downstairs and called the office.

Daisy answered on the first ring. “Meredith Whitson Cooper’s office.”

“Hey, Daisy,” Meredith said, still frowning. “I’m going to work from Belye Nochi today. My mom’s acting a little strange.”

“Grief will do that to a person.”

“Yeah,” Meredith said, thinking of the tears that were always on her cheeks when she woke. Yesterday she’d been so exhausted she’d added orange juice to her coffee instead of soy milk. She’d drunk half the cup before she even noticed. “It will.”

If Meredith had been burning the candle at both ends then, by the end of January, there was nothing left but the flame. She knew Jeff had grown impatient with her, even angry. Time and again, he told her to hire someone to help take care of her mother, or to let him help her, or—worst of all—to make time for them. But how was she supposed to accomplish that amid all her other chores? She’d tried to get Mom a housekeeper, but that had been a disaster. The poor woman had worked at Belye Nochi a week and quit without giving notice, saying that she couldn’t stand the way Mom watched her all the time and told her to quit touching things.

So, with Nina gone off God knew where and Mom growing stranger and colder every day, Meredith had no choice but to pick up the slack. She’d made a promise to her father to care for Mom and she would never let him down. So she kept moving, doing everything that needed to be done. As long as she was moving, she could contain her grief.

Her routine had become her salvation.

Every morning she woke early, ran four miles, made her husband and her mother breakfast, and left for work. By eight o’clock, she was at her desk, working. At noon, she returned to Belye Nochi to check on Mom, pay a few bills, or do a little cleaning. Then it was back to work until six, grocery shopping on her way home, stop at Mom’s until seven or eight, and—if Mom wasn’t acting too weird—home by eight-thirty for whatever dinner she and Jeff could throw together. Without fail, she fell asleep on the sofa by nine and woke up at three in the morning. The only good part about this crazy routine was that she could call Maddy early because of the time-zone difference. Sometimes, just hearing her daughters’ voices could get her through the day.

Now it was barely noon and she was already exhausted as she hit the intercom button and said, “Daisy, I’m going home for lunch. I’ll be back in an hour. Can you get the shed reports to Hector and remind Ed to get me that information on grapes?”

The door to her office opened. “I’m worried about you,” Daisy said, closing the door behind her.

Meredith was touched. “Thank you, Daisy, but I’m fine.”

“You’re working too hard. He wouldn’t like it.”

“I know, Daisy. Thanks.”

Meredith watched Daisy leave the office, then gathered up her purse and keys.

Outside, snow was falling again. The parking lot was a slushy, muddy mess, as were the roads.

She drove slowly out to her mom’s house, parked, and went inside. At the entryway, she took off her coat and hung it up, calling out, “Mom, I’m here.”

There was no answer.

She dug through the refrigerator, found the pierogies she’d defrosted last night and a Tupperware container full of lentil soup. She popped the pierogies in the microwave and warmed them up. She was just about to go upstairs when she caught a glimpse of a dark shape in the winter garden.

This was getting old....

She got her coat and trudged through the falling snow to the garden. “Mom,” she said, hearing the exasperation in her voice and unable to temper it. “You’ve got to quit this. Come on inside. I’ll make some pierogies and soup for you.”

“From the belt?”

Meredith shook her head. Whatever the hell that meant. “Come on.” She helped her mother to her feet—bare again, and blue with cold—and led her into the kitchen, where she wrapped her up in a big blanket and sat her down at the table. “Are you okay?”

“I am not the one to be worrying about, Olga,” Mom said. “Check on our lion.”

“It’s me, Meredith.”

“Meredith,” she said, as if trying to make sense of the name.

Meredith frowned. Her mother seemed more confused than made sense. This wasn’t just ordinary grief. Something was wrong. “Come on, Mom. I think we need to see Dr. Burns.”

“What have we to trade?”

Meredith sighed again and took the plate of pierogies from the microwave. Placing the golden lamb-filled pastries on a cooler plate, she set them in front of her mother. “They’re hot. Be careful. I’m going to get your clothes and call the doctor. Stay here. Okay?”

She went upstairs for some clothes, and while she was there, she called Daisy and asked her to make an emergency appointment with Dr. Burns. Then she came down with the clothes and helped Mom to her feet.

“You ate all of them?” Meredith said, surprised. “Good.” She put a sweater on Mom, then helped her into socks and snow boots. “Put on your coat. I’ll go warm up the car.”

When she came back into the house, Mom was in the entryway, buttoning up her coat incorrectly.

“Here, Mom.” Meredith unbuttoned the coat and rebuttoned it. She had almost finished when she realized that the coat was warm.

She reached into the pockets and found the pierogies, still hot from the oven, wrapped in greasy paper towels. What the hell?

“They’re for Anya,” Mom said.

“I know they’re yours,” Meredith said, frowning. “I’ll leave them right here for you, okay?” she said, putting them in the ceramic bowl on the entry table. “Come on, Mom.”

She led her mother out of the house and into the SUV.

“Just lean back, Mom. Go to sleep. You must be exhausted.” She started up the car and drove to town, parking in one of the angled spots in front of the Cashmere Medical Group’s brick office.

Inside, Georgia Edwards was at the desk, looking as perky and beautiful as she had in her cheerleading days at Cashmere High. “Hey, Mere,” she said, smiling.

“Hi, Georgia. Did Daisy get an appointment for my mom?”

“You know Jim. He’d do anything for you Whitsons. Take her down to Exam A.”

As they approached the exam room, Mom seemed to realize suddenly where they were. “This is ridiculous,” she said, yanking her arm away.

“Disagree all you want,” Meredith said, “but we’re seeing the doctor.”

Her mother straightened, lifted her chin, and walked briskly to the first exam room. There, she took the only seat for herself.

Meredith followed her inside and closed the door.

A few moments later, Dr. James Burns walked into the room, smiling. Bald as a cue ball, with compassionate gray eyes, he made Meredith think of her father. They’d been golf partners for years; Jim’s father had been one of her father’s best friends. He hugged Meredith tightly; in the embrace was their shared grief and a silent I miss him, too.

“So,” he said when he stepped back. “How are you today, Anya?”

“I am fine, James. Thank you. Meredith is jumpy. You know this.”

“Do you mind if I examine you?” he asked.

“Of course it is fine,” Mom said. “But unnecessary.”

Jim conducted an ordinary flu-type examination. When he finished with that, he made a few notes on her chart and then said, “What day is it, Anya?”

“January thirty-first, 2001,” she said, her gaze steady and clear. “Wednesday. We have a new president. George Bush, the younger. And Olympia is the state capital.”

Jim paused. “How are you, Anya? Really?”

“My heart beats. I breathe. I go to sleep and I wake up.”

“Maybe you should see someone,” he said gently.

“Who?”

“A doctor who will help you talk about your loss.”

“Death is not something to talk about. You Americans believe words change a thing. They do not.”

He nodded.

“My daughter needs help, perhaps.”

“Okay,” he said, making a few more notes on the chart. “Why don’t you go to the waiting room while I speak to her?”

Mom left the room immediately.

“There’s something wrong with her,” Meredith said as soon as they were alone. “She’s confused a lot. She’s hardly sleeping. Today she put her lunch in her pockets and talked about herself in the third person. She’s constantly worried about a lion, and she called me Olga. I think she’s confusing the fairy tales with real life. Last night I heard her reciting one of them to herself... as if Dad were listening. You know she’s always been depressed in the winter, but this is something else. Something’s wrong. Could she have Alzheimer’s?”

“Her mind seems to be fine, Meredith.”

“But—”

“She’s grieving. Give her some time.”

“But—”

“There’s no normal way to handle a thing like this. They were married for five decades and now she’s alone. Just listen to her, if you can; talk to her. And don’t let her be alone too much.”

“Believe me, Jim, my mom is alone whether I am in the room or not.”

“So be alone together.”

“Yeah,” Meredith said. “Right. Thanks, Jim, for seeing us. Now I need to get her home and get back to work. I have a two-fifteen meeting.”

“Maybe you should try slowing down. I can give you a sleeping pill prescription if you’d like.”

Meredith wished she had ten bucks for every time someone—especially her husband—had given her that advice. She’d be on a Mexican beach with the money. “Sure, Jim,” she said. “I’ll stop and smell the roses.”

On a blistering hot day, more than one month after she’d left Washington State, Nina stood amid a sea of desperate, starving refugees. As far as she could see, there were people huddled in front of dirty, sagging tents. Their situation was critical; many of them had come in bleeding or shot or raped, but their stoicism was remarkable. Heat and dust beat down on them; they walked miles for a bucket of water, waited hours for a measure of rice from the Red Cross, but still there were children playing in the dirt; every now and then the sound of laughter rose above the crying.

Nina was as filthy and tired and hungry as those around her. She’d lived in this camp for two weeks now. Before that, she’d been in Sierra Leone, ducking and hiding to avoid being shot or raped herself.

She squatted down in the dry, dirty red soil. The humming sound of the camp was overwhelming, a combination of bugs and voices and distant machinery. Off to the left, a tattered medical flag fluttered above an army-issue tent. Hundreds of injured people stood patiently in line for help.

In front of her, sprawled half in and half out of a tent, an old, wizened black man lay in his wife’s arms. He’d recently lost a leg, and the bloody stump seeped red beneath the blanket that was wrapped around him. His wife had been with him for hours, propping him up, although her own emaciated body had to be aching. She tipped precious drops of water into his mouth.

Nina capped her lens and stood up. Staring out over the camp, she felt an exhaustion that was new for her. For the first time in her career, the tragedy of it all was nearly unbearable. It wasn’t worse here than where she’d been before. That wasn’t it. The situation hadn’t changed. She had. She carried grief with her everywhere, and the burden of it made compartmentalization impossible.

People usually thought her work was about being there, as if anyone could just point and shoot, but the truth was that her photographs were an extension of who she was, what she thought, how she felt. It took perfect concentration to capture the exquisite pain of personal tragedy on film. You had to be there one hundred percent, in the moment—but it had to be their moment.

She opened her pack and pulled out her satellite phone. Walking as far east as she dared, she set up the equipment, positioned the satellite, and called Danny.

At the sound of his voice, she felt something in her chest relax. “Danny,” she said, yelling to be heard over the static.

“Nina, love. I thought you’d forgotten me. Where are you?”

She winced at that. “Guinea. You?”

“Zambia.”

“I’m tired,” she said, surprising herself. She couldn’t remember ever saying that before, not while she was working.

“I can be at Mnemba Island by Wednesday.”

Blue water. White sand. Ice. Sex. “I’m in.”

She disconnected the call and packed her phone back up. Slinging the strap over her shoulder, she headed back to the camp. A line of new Red Cross trucks had arrived and the pandemonium of food distribution was going on. She sidestepped a pair of women carrying a box of supplies and went past the tent where she’d been taking pictures.

The man in the bloody bandages had died. The woman still sat behind him, rocking him in her arms, singing to him.

Nina stopped and took a picture, but this time the lens was no protection, and when she eased the camera from her eye, she realized she was crying.

From her comfortable, air-conditioned seat in the back of an SUV, Nina stared through the window at the scenery of Zanzibar. The narrow, twisting streets were teeming with people: women draped in the traditional Muslim veils and robes, schoolchildren in blue and white uniforms, men standing in groups. On the side of the road, vendors tried to sell anything they could, from fruits and vegetables to tennis shoes to barely used T-shirts. In the jungle behind the road, women—most with babies on their backs or in their arms—picked cloves; the spices lay in cinnamon-colored swatches on the sides of the road, drying in the hot sun.

When the cab finally left the main road and turned onto the dirt path that led to the beach, Nina hung on to the door handle for dear life. The road here was pure coral—as was the island—and tires could blow in a second. Their speed slowed; they inched past villages set up in the middle of nothing; cattle penned in makeshift corrals, women in brightly colored veils and dresses gathering sticks, children pumping together at the well for water. The houses were small and dark and made of whatever was handy—sticks, mud, chunks of coral—and everything wore the red cast of the dirt.

At the end of the road, the beach was a hive of activity. Wooden boats bobbed in the shallow water, while men tended to nets spread out on the sand. Raggedly dressed boys haunted the area, hoping for tourists, offering to pose for photographs in exchange for American dollars.

The minute she stepped onto the sleek white motorboat, she realized how tense she’d been. A knot in her neck relaxed. She felt the sea air on her dirty face, whipping through her matted hair as they sped across the flat sea. It occurred to her, as she breathed in the salty air, how lucky she was in this life, even with her grief. She could leave the terrible places behind, change her future with a phone call and an airplane ticket.

The private island—Mnemba—was a small atoll in the Zanzibar archipelago, and when she arrived, the island’s manager, Zoltan, was there with a glass of white wine and a cool, wet rag. When he saw Nina, his dark, handsome face broke into a wide grin. “I am glad to see you again.”

She jumped out of the boat and into the warm water, making sure to hold her gear bag high above her head. “Thanks, Zoltan. I’m glad to be here.” She took the wine from him. “Is Danny here?”

“He’s in number seven.”

She slung the camera bag and backpack strap over her shoulder and made her way down the beach. The sand was as white as the coral from which it had been formed, and the water was a remarkable shade of aquamarine. Almost exactly the color of her mother’s eyes.

There were nine private bandas on the island—thatch-roofed, open-sided cottages—each hidden from view by dense vegetation. The only time guests saw each other, or the staff, was for meals in the dining hut or at sunset, when cocktails were set up on a table at the beach in front of each banda.

Nina saw the discreet #7 sign on the beachside lounge chairs and followed the sand path to the banda. A pair of tiny antelope, no larger than rabbits, with antlers as sharp as ice picks, bounded across the path and disappeared.

She saw Danny before he saw her. He was in one of the woven bamboo chairs, with his bare feet propped on a coffee table, sipping a beer and reading. She leaned against the wooden railing. “That beer isn’t quite the best-looking thing in the room, but it’s close.”

Danny tossed down his book and stood up. Even in his worn, overwashed khaki shorts, with his long black hair in need of a good cutting, and his shadowy, stubble-coated jaw, he looked beautiful. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her until she pushed him away, laughing. “I’m filthy,” she said.

“It’s what I love best about you,” he said, kissing the grimy palm of her hand.

“I need a shower,” she said, unbuttoning her shirt. He took her by the hand and led her through the bedroom and down the wooden walkway to the bathroom and the outside shower. Beneath the spray of hot water, she peeled out of her bra and shorts and panties, kicking the sopping garments aside. Danny washed her in a way that was pure foreplay, and when the soap was still sliding down her slick body, and she reached for him, all it took was a touch. He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.

Later, when they both could breathe again, they lay entwined on the net-draped bed. “Wow,” she said, her head cradled in the crook of his arm. “I forgot how good we are at that.”

“We’re good at a lot of things.”

“I know. But we’re really good at that.”

There was a pause, and in it she knew he was going to say what she didn’t want to hear. “I had to hear from Sylvie that your da died.”

“What was I supposed to do? Call and cry? Tell you he was dying?”

He rolled onto his side, pulling her with him until they lay facing each other. His hand slid down her back and rested on the curve of her hip. “I’m from Dublin, remember? I know about losin’ people, Nina. I know how it sits inside you like battery acid, burnin’ through. And I know about runnin’ from it. You’re not the only one in Africa, are you?”

“What do you want from me, Danny? What?”

“Tell me about your da.”

She stared at him, feeling cornered. She wanted to give him what he wanted, but she couldn’t. Her feelings, her loss, were so intense that if she let herself feel all of it, she’d never find a way back.

“I don’t know how. He was... my sun, I guess.”

“I love you like that,” he said quietly.

Nina wished that made her feel better, but it didn’t. She knew about unequal love, how you could be crushed from the inside if one person was more in love than the other. Hadn’t she sometimes seen that kind of wreckage in Dad’s eyes when he looked at Mom? She was sure she had. And once you’d seen that kind of pain, you didn’t forget it. If Danny ever looked at her like that it would break her heart. And he would. Sooner or later he’d figure out that she might have loved her dad, but she was more like her mom.

“Can’t we just—”

“For now,” he said, but she knew it wouldn’t end here.

The thought of losing him made her feel strangely anxious, so she did what she always did when her emotions were too sharp to bear: she let her hands slide down his bare chest, to the line of hair from his navel and still downward, and when she touched him and felt how hard he was for her, she knew he was still hers.

For now.

The sky is slate-gray and swollen with clouds. A lone seagull wheels overhead, battling the wind, cawing. She is little, a girl with long brown pigtails and skinned knees. Running after him. A kite skips on the sand in front of her, twisting; it flips away before she can reach it.

“Daddy,” she yells, knowing he is too far ahead. He can’t hear her. “I’m back here—”

Meredith awoke in a panic. She sat up in bed and looked around, knowing he wouldn’t be here. It was another dream.

Still tired and aching from a night spent turning beneath the covers, she eased out of bed, being careful not to waken Jeff. She went to the window and stared out at the darkness. Dawn hadn’t shown its face yet. She crossed her arms tightly, trying to hold herself together. It felt as if pieces of her soul were falling away lately, like some ugly form of spiritual leprosy.

“Come back to bed, Mere.”

She didn’t look back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Why don’t you sleep in today?”

It sounded good, the idea that she could bury herself in his arms and under the blankets and just sleep while life ticked on without her. “I wish I could,” she said, already thinking of what she needed to do this morning. As long as she was up, she could get to work on the quarterly taxes. She had a meeting with the accountant next week and she needed to be ready.

Jeff got out of bed and came up behind her. She saw a silvered image of their faces in the blackened window.

“You take care of everything and everyone, Mere. But who takes care of you?”

She turned to him, let him hold her. “You do.”

“Me?” he said sharply. “I’m one more thing on your To-Do list.”

At another time—last year, maybe—she would have told him that wasn’t fair, fought with him about it, but she was too depleted now to bother.

“Not now, Jeff,” was all she could think to say. “I can’t have this conversation.”

“I know how much you’re hurting—”

“Of course I’m hurting. My dad died.”

“There’s more to it than that. You’re doing too much,” he said quietly. “You’re still hell-bent on getting her attention, just like—”

“What am I supposed to do? Ignore her? Or maybe I should quit my job?”

“Hire someone. She doesn’t give a shit if you’re there. I know it hurts, baby, but she’s never cared.”

“I can’t. She won’t let me. And I promised Dad.”

“What if she breaks you? Is that what your dad wanted? Does she ever even look at you?”

She knew he was right. In times like these she wished they hadn’t been together so long, that he hadn’t seen so much. But he’d been there on the night of the play—and other nights like it—and he knew her heart and how much pain it sometimes held. “It’s not about her, even. You know that. It’s about me. Who I am. I just can’t let it... let her go.”

“Your dad was worried about this, remember? He was afraid our family would break apart without him, and he was right. We’re falling apart. You’re falling apart and you won’t let anyone help you.”

“Doc Burns says Mom will be okay in a little while. Once she’s fine, I promise I’ll hire someone to clean her house and pay her bills, okay?”

“You promise?”

She kissed him lightly on the lips. It was over. For now. “I’ll be back for breakfast, okay? I’ll make us omelets and fruit. Just you and me.”

Easing away from him, she headed for the bathroom. As she was closing the door, she thought she heard him say something. She caught the word worried and closed the door.

In the dark, she dressed in her running clothes and left the bedroom. Downstairs, she turned on the coffeepot and collected the dogs and headed out into the cold early February darkness.

She pushed herself harder than ever before, desperate to clear her mind. Physical pain was so much easier to handle than heartache. Beside her, the dogs yelped and played with each other, occasionally running off into the deep snow on the sides of the road, but always coming back. By the time she had come to the golf course and doubled back, dawn had gilded the valley. It hadn’t snowed in almost two weeks and the top layer was crusty and glittery in the pale sunlight.

She veered into Belye Nochi and fed the dogs on Mom’s porch. It was one of the many changes in Meredith’s new schedule. She always did at least two things at once. She slipped out of her running shoes and went into the kitchen, where she started the samovar, and then climbed the stairs. She was still red-faced and breathing heavily when she opened Mom’s door.

And found the bed empty.

“Shit.”

Meredith went outside to the winter garden and sat beside her mother, who wore the lacy nightdress that Dad had given her for Christmas last year, with a blue mohair blanket draped around her shoulders. Her lower lip was bleeding from where she’d bitten it. Her feet were covered in stockings that were gray with damp and brown with dirt.

Meredith dared to reach out and cover her mother’s cold, cold hand with her own, but she couldn’t find any words to go along with the intimate act. “Come on, Mom, you need to eat something.”

“I ate yesterday.”

“I know. Come on.” She held her mother’s hand and helped her to rise. After too much time spent on this metal bench, her mother’s body straightened slowly, popping and creaking at the new movement.

As soon as she was fully upright, Mom pulled away from Meredith and walked up the flagstone path toward the house.

Meredith let her go on ahead.

Meredith followed her into the kitchen, where she called Jeff and told him she wouldn’t be home for breakfast after all. “Mom was in the garden again,” she said. “I think I better work here today.”

“Big surprise.”

“Come on, Jeff. Be fair—”

He hung up.

Stung by the sound of the dial tone, she called Jillian instead. They immediately fell into their easy routine, talking about school and Los Angeles and the weather. Meredith listened to her eldest daughter in amazement. As was happening more and more often lately, she heard this confident young woman talking about chemistry and biology and medical schools, and Meredith wondered how it had happened, this growing up and moving on. Only yesterday, Jillie had been a pudgy girl with gaps in her teeth who could spend an entire afternoon staring at an apple bud, waiting for it to blossom. It’s coming, Mommy. The flower will be here any second. Should I go get Grandpa?

And teaching Jillian to drive had taken about ten minutes. I read the manuals, Mom. You don’t have to grit your teeth. Trust me.

“I love you, Jillie,” Meredith said, realizing a second too late that she’d interrupted her daughter. She’d been saying something about enzymes. Or maybe ebola. Meredith laughed; she’d been caught not listening. “And I’m really proud of you.”

“I’m putting you into a coma, aren’t I?”

“Just a deep sleep.”

Jillian laughed. “Okay, Mom. I gotta run anyway. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Beetle.”

When Meredith hung up, she felt better. Whole again. Talking to her girls was always the best prescription for the blues. Except, of course, when those same conversations caused the blues....

For the rest of the day, she worked from her mother’s kitchen table; in addition to paying taxes and reading crop reports and overseeing warehouse costs, she cajoled her mother into eating and paid her bills and washed her clothes.

Finally, at eight o’clock, when the dinner dishes were done and the food was put away, she went into the living room.

Mom sat in Dad’s favorite chair, knitting. A floor lamp glowed beside her; the light gave her face a softness that was illusory. To her left, the candle on the altar of the Holy Corner sputtered and sent smoke spiraling upward.

Mom’s eyes were closed, even while her fingers wielded the knitting needles. Shadowy lashes fanned down her pale cheeks, giving her an eerily sad look.

“It’s time for bed, Mom,” Meredith said, striving to sound neither impatient nor tired. She flicked on the ceiling light and in an instant the intimacy of the room was gone.

“I can manage my own schedule,” Mom said.

And so it began, the endless grind of getting Mom upstairs into bed. They fought about all of it: brushing teeth, changing clothes, taking off socks.

At just past nine, Meredith finally got her mom settled into bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin, just as she’d once done for Jillian and Maddy. “Sleep well,” Meredith said. “Dream of Dad.”

“It hurts to dream,” Mom said quietly.

Meredith didn’t know what to say to that. “So dream of your garden. The crocuses will be blooming soon.”

“Are they edible?”

That was how it happened lately; one moment her mother was there, behind her blue eyes, and then just as suddenly she’d be absent.

Meredith wanted to believe it was grief that was causing these changes in her mother, all of this confusion. With grief, there would be an end to it.

But each day it went on, each time Mom seemed disconnected to the world and confused by it, Meredith lost a little bit of faith in Dr. Burns’s assessment. She worried that it had to be Alzheimer’s instead of grief. How else to explain her mother’s sudden obsession with leather shoes and pounds of butter (which Meredith now found hidden all through the house), and the fairy-tale lion that she sometimes found her mother talking about?

Meredith touched her not-mother again, soothing her as she would a frightened child. “It’s okay, Mom. We have plenty of food downstairs.”

“I’ll sleep for a minute, then I’ll go to the roof.”

“No going to the roof,” Meredith said tiredly.

Mom sighed and closed her eyes. Within moments, she was asleep.

Meredith went around the room picking up the blankets and other items Mom had dropped.

Downstairs, she put a load of clothes in the washer so they’d be ready to go when she got here tomorrow. Then she finished the two care packages for Jillian and Maddy.

It was ten o’clock by the time she was done.

At home, she found Jeff in his office, working on his book.

“Hey,” she said, coming into the room.

He didn’t turn around. “Hey.”

“How’s the book going?”

“Great.”

“I still haven’t read it.”

“I know.” He turned to her then.

The look he gave her was familiar, full of disappointment, and suddenly she saw the two of them and this moment from a distance, and the new perspective changed everything. “Are we in trouble, Jeff?”

She could see that he was a little relieved by her question, that he’d been waiting for her to ask it. “Yeah.”

“Oh.” She could see that she’d disappointed him again, that he wanted to talk about these troubles she’d suddenly excavated and tripped over, but she didn’t know what to say. Frankly, this was the last thing she needed now. Her mom was crossing the road into crazy and her husband thought they were in trouble.

Knowing it was a mistake and unable to correct it, she left his office—and his sad, disappointed look—and went up to the bedroom they’d shared for so many years. She stripped down to her underwear and put on an old T-shirt, and climbed into bed. A pair of sleeping pills should have helped, but they didn’t, and later, when he crawled into bed, she knew he knew she was still awake.

She rolled over and pressed up against his back, whispered, “Good night.”

It wasn’t enough, wasn’t anything, and they both knew it. The conversation they needed to have was out there, like a storm cloud, gathering mass in the distance.