17
A week passed, maybe two. They were slow and foggy. Their passage was marked by routine: Rob delivered me a smoothie each morning. I read a book or fiddled on my computer. We ate evening meals. I’d become thin, my hip bones protruding like daggers from the cotton fabric of my sleep shorts. Andrea made dinner mandatory. In between meals, when I wasn’t reading books, I more often than not napped. Follow-up emails from Elena had slowed to a trickle and then disappeared altogether. I couldn’t work anyway. Fatigue had hit me hard. I’d begun dozing off soon after I cracked my laptop or the spine of a book.
One day Andrea caught me googling Ryan when she brought me my lunch.
‘Oh, Maeve, don’t torture yourself,’ she said.
‘I just can’t believe how much I learned from his obituary.’ My voice
