Since Kathy’s diagnosis, though—or maybe it dates back before then and I merely found a catalyst on which to pin the label of previously unnamable feelings—I feel myself unspooling, a hypomanic restless energy mounting. I change radio stations mid-song; I’m eating and sleeping less, something under my skin clawing to get out. Am I the lion in the house, after all this time, waiting to pounce? I run soups and pastas down the stairs for my parents’ dinner, go back to collect greasy Tupperware. I listen to Kathy crying on the phone, sit next to her while the nurses put on hazmat suits to administer her chemo. Emily tells me she is getting a divorce. If I am unhappy and my husband is unhappy but neither one of us speaks up, does anyone hear the tree of our marriage falling?

The white-noise machine dulls the roar of Sabina’s siren call.