Then I carried it into the living room, where the big fern hung by the window. And when nobody was looking, I poured the whole thing into the soil.
I rinsed the mug. I set it on the drying rack. And I climbed the stairs, moving slowly, dragging one hand along the rail as if my legs weighed a thousand pounds.
Derek was already in bed. "Sleepy?" he asked.
"So sleepy," I whispered.
I lay in the dark next to my husband and listened to his breathing.
It was the longest night of my life.
But I stayed awake. For the first time in three weeks, I stayed awake, and when the morning came, the world had edges again. Colors were sharper. My thoughts moved in straight lines. I felt as if I were surfacing from the bottom of a lake.
I felt clear.
And I knew, with absolute certainty, that what I'd been feeling for three weeks had never been grief, or stress, or a failing mind.
Somebody had been doing it to me.
I made pancakes. I sat at the breakfast table with my family and smiled and asked Lorraine how she'd slept.
Then, when Derek said he was taking his mother to physical therapy, I put a hand to my forehead and said I couldn't go, I had a terrible headache.
He kissed my forehead.
"Rest, babe. You've been so tired lately."
The moment the garage door closed, I walked up to the guest room, knelt on the carpet in front of a navy blue suitcase, and began turning the dials.
So that is how I came to be kneeling on the floor of my own guest room with my son's birthday on a lock and my life spread out around me.
I've told you what I found.
Now let me tell you what I did with it.
The first person I called was Ray Kessler.
Ray was my father's partner for twenty-two years. He was seventy-one now, retired, with a bad knee, a gray crew cut, and a deep, raspy voice that had told me You'll be fine, kiddo on the worst day of my life. He'd stood beside my father's casket and given the eulogy when I couldn't.
I called him from the parking lot of the grocery store at eleven o'clock on Wednesday morning, sitting in my minivan with my hands locked around the steering wheel.
"Nora?" he said. "Everything okay?"