What would it be like to lose one’s family? I suppose it’s inevitable in everyone’s family – there is always a last survivor, after all – but, Vivian’s comment made me ache for my mom whenever I would see her. I felt as though her loss had become my loss, and I began swinging by more frequently. I’d drop by after work two or three times a week and spend time with my mom, and though we didn’t talk about what she – and I – was going through, it was always there with us, an all-encompassing sadness.

One night, a couple of months into my new routine, I dropped by the house and saw my dad trimming the hedges while my mom waited on the porch. My dad pretended not to have noticed my arrival and didn’t turn around.

“Let’s take a drive,” my mom announced. “And by that, I mean that you’re driving.”

She marched toward my car and after opening the passenger door, she took a seat and closed the door behind her.

“What’s going on, Dad?”

He stopped trimming but didn’t turn to face me. “Just get in the car. It’s important to your mom.”

I did as I was told and when I asked where we were going, my mom told me to head toward the fire station.

Still confused, I did as I was told and when we were getting close, she suddenly told me to turn right; two blocks later, she directed me to take a left. By then, even I knew where she wanted me to go, and we pulled to a stop next to a gate that was bordered on either side by wooded lots. Before us stood the water tower, and when my mom got out of the car, I followed her.

For a while, she said nothing to me.

“Why are we here, Mom?”

She tilted her head, her eyes seeming to follow the ladder that led to the landing near the top.

“I know what happened,” she said. “When Tracey and Marge broke up. I know she was brokenhearted and that you met her here. You were still a child, but somehow, you talked her down and brought her back to the dorms.”

I swallowed my denials, something easier said than done. Nothing I could say would matter; this was my mom’s show.

“Do you know what it’s like to think that my daughter might have died here? When she told me, I remember wondering to myself why she hadn’t called me or your dad. But I know the answer to that, too. You two share something wonderful, and I can’t tell you how proud that makes me. We may not have been the best parents, but at least we raised you both right.”

She continued to stare at the water tower. “You were in so much trouble, but you never said anything to us. About where you’d been that night. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

I saw a deep sadness in her expression as she turned toward me. “You have a gift,” she said. “You feel so deeply and you care so much. And that’s a wonderful thing. That’s why you knew exactly what to do with Marge. You took her pain and made it your own, and now you’re trying to do the same thing with me.”

Though she trailed off, I knew that more was coming.

“I know you think you’re helping, but no matter what you do, you can’t take my sadness away. But you are making yourself miserable. And that breaks my heart, and I don’t want you to do that. I’m getting through this one day at a time, but I don’t have the strength to have to worry about you, too.”

“I don’t know if I can stop worrying about you.”

She touched my cheek. “I know. But I want you to try. Just remember that I’ve made it through one hundred percent of the worst days of my life so far. Just like your dad, and Marge. And, of course, you have, too. And how we get through them is one day at a time.”

Later that night, I thought about what my mom had told me. She was right, of course, but what I didn’t know was that as challenging as life had sometimes been, the worst days were still yet to come, and they would be the worst of all.

Nine thousand, three hundred and sixty minutes.

That was how long it had been – well, approximately, anyway – since my world turned upside down, and to me, it felt as though I’d been hyperaware of the passage of every single one of them. Every one of these minutes in the past week had passed with agonizing slowness, as I seemed to be experiencing them with every cell in my body, every tick of the clock.

It was Monday, September fourteenth. A week ago, Vivian had left me. I continued to dwell on her obsessively, and the night before, I’d had trouble sleeping. Going for a run helped, but by the time I’d returned, I’d lost my appetite. In the last week, I’d dropped another seven pounds.

Stress. The ultimate diet.

Even as I made the phone call, I think I already knew what I was going to do. I told myself I simply wanted to know where Vivian would be traveling this week, but that wasn’t true. When the receptionist at Spannerman answered, I asked to be connected to Vivian and reached a woman named Melanie who identified herself as Vivian’s assistant. I didn’t know my wife even had an assistant, but apparently there was much I didn’t know about her, or maybe, had never known at all.

I was told that Vivian was in a meeting and when Melanie asked my name, I lied. I told her that I was a local reporter and wanted to know whether she would be around this week to speak. Melanie informed me that Vivian would be in the office today and tomorrow, but after that, she would be out of the office.

I then called Marge and asked if she would pick up London from school and later, bring her to dance. I told her that I was going to see my wife, but that I would be home later tonight.