She gave a small polite reason that Martha did not afterward remember, and she left, and the door clicked shut behind her, and in the quiet that followed Martha reached over without a word and took her daughter’s hand.

A few minutes later the door opened again, and it was not the technician who came back.

It was an attending physician, a calm middle-aged man who came in, closed the door deliberately behind him, and did something that told Martha more than anything he would go on to say.

He did not stand over them with a clipboard.

He pulled a chair around and sat down directly across from them, at their level, close, the way a person sits when what they are about to say requires them to be a human being and not a white coat.

Chapter 5 — How Long Has Her Father Known