I was at home, with a police liaison sitting at my kitchen table and my three daughters white-faced in the doorway, and someone’s voice on a radio in the other room said the words found the boat, and for one soaring instant my heart leapt, because found the boat sounded like good news, sounded like the beginning of found them.

And then I saw the liaison’s face, and I understood that an empty boat is not good news.

An empty boat is the worst news there is, because it is a question with no answer attached, and I was about to begin living inside that question for six years.

There is a particular torment in an unanswered question of that size, and it is this: it will not let you grieve cleanly, and it will not let you hope, so it holds you in a terrible middle place between the two.

A family confirmed dead can be mourned.