On Sunday, I try again: I go to the craft store, where I buy coloring books better suited to crayons, then search for a box of crayons. I want to get her the biggest box, the sixty-four color set I wanted as a child that my mother refused to buy on the grounds that it was too expensive. It has a pencil sharpener on the back, though, so I choose another, smaller set, one the nurse will surely allow.

I walk from the craft store to the supermarket in hopes of finding some magazines for her. A woman sits on the steps outside, and as I pass, she asks me for fifty cents for a cup of coffee. I tell her I don’t carry cash, which sounds like a lie but isn’t. Inside, the lines are long, and I’m anxious to deliver the crayons and coloring books, so I decide against the magazines.

Instead, I stop at the Starbucks stand, which has no line, and buy a five dollar gift card.

Walking back to my car, I pass the woman on the steps again, and hand her the gift card. I never carry cash, I say, but I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee all the same.

She looks at me and says thank you, but we don’t connect; the truth of the matter is, I don’t want to know why she’s on those stairs any more than I want to tell her why I am.

It’s time to visit The Child, and since my car isn’t in the garage, I exit through the front door, where I discover a gift bag waiting on the porch. A friend I was supposed to see that morning has left it, and it’s filled with instant soup packets, Hershey’s Hugs, a travel bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, and several pop-top cans of wine. I smile, then wonder what the social worker would think of me drinking wine, then wonder how things got to a point where I am wondering what anyone would think of someone having an occasional nip of cheap wine from a bright green aluminum can.

I unpack the bag in the kitchen, then microwave some soup, and realize it’s the first thing I’ve eaten all day even though it’s well into the afternoon.

At the hospital, I attempt to deliver a coloring book and pencils to The Child, but the nurse on guard won’t allow the pencils: safety reasons. She offers crayons, which I don’t think will work very well in the intricate designs. I give it to The Child apologetically, hoping she will see my good intentions.

She is miserable.

She’s still in her glass-walled room, but there’s nobody to talk to, nothing to do, and she can’t leave or even shower unaccompanied. She tried to request food and it took 40 minutes to arrive and wasn’t enough. She wants to know when she can leave; she wants to go to the psychiatric hospital.

I don’t really have any control over that, I tell her.

She apologizes for my canceled business trip, and I offer a reply in a flat voice, one I hope is neutral.

She wants more: She demands some show of emotions from me, but I have none to offer. I don’t know what I might say that might set her off; I don’t know how to remain silent in a way that won’t set her off, so after repeated attempts at conversation, I tell her that.

Tears well up in her eyes, so I leave.

Saturday arrives early. I send emails: to my boss, canceling a business trip; to my coworkers, explaining my absence and making no guarantees about my return. I have already canceled my plans for the weekend, so once the emails are sent and the pets are fed, I find myself with nothing in particular to do.

I start to clean.

I begin in the garage, where we’ve been piling household items destined for charity or the dump, but also the place that came up in conversation with both the school counselor and the social worker. I back out my car and stand in the chilled space, surveying the clutter. This was the space The Departed once claimed as his, and the only thing that has changed since he left is the nature of the half-finished projects.

Rafters, they said: but there are no rafters.

Boxes have been moved, but there’s nothing unusual about that; Christmas is approaching, the boxes contain decorations. But the boxes haven’t been moved into the house, where the tree is; they are stacked beneath one of the garage door railings.

I inspect them. There are no signs of damage, which there should be if someone stood on them; they are thin, clear plastic – not sturdy enough to support much.

I survey the heaps of stuff, some of which has been on the garage floor as long as I’ve owned the garage. Extension cords lie in a chaotic heap, as they have since the Halloween lights came down, except for one, slightly off to the side, knotted into a noose.

It is all in plain sight, unless you happen to park your car in its usual space and exit on the other side.