So when the floor moved and the counter slid under my hand, some clear cold part of me stood apart from the dizziness and took note of it, the way you note a figure in a column that does not belong — this is not tiredness, this is not age, this is not the ordinary spin of standing up too fast.

This is something that was not here an hour ago, and the only thing that has changed in an hour is the food on my plate.

“Mom?” Noah turned.

“Sit down.”

I lowered myself into the chair.

The freezer rattled again, and Keith appeared in the doorway with the folder still under his arm and asked what had happened, and when Noah said I had gotten dizzy, Keith looked only at Noah and asked, “And you?” Noah said he was okay, and Keith smiled and said, “Good,” and did not ask me again.

That was the detail that stayed with me longest from the first night, longer even than the dizziness itself.