You’ve been looking so pale lately.”

And I thought of my recent medical tests — the elevated liver enzymes, the bone-deep exhaustion, the aching joints, the strange marks on my skin that not one doctor had been able to explain.

For two years I had been slowly, mysteriously falling apart, and no one could say why, and my mother-in-law had just told me I looked pale in the gentle voice of a woman tending someone she loved.

Chapter 4 — The Jar

After dinner I pretended to wipe down the counter.

Behind a box of tea sat a small white porcelain jar.