Not suspected.

Known, with certainty, in a document, for months.

Daniel called me from the hospital parking lot, where he had driven without quite deciding to, the way you drive to the one place your body still thinks of as solid ground.

He was not crying.

His voice was something far worse than crying; it was completely hollow, scraped out, a voice with nothing left inside it.

“She had me talk to her stomach,” he said.