Memories of Mia visit me all hours of the day and night, an image of one-year-old Mia in an olive-colored bubble outfit, her chubby thighs bulging out while she tried, unsuccessfully, to walk; hot-pink toenails on precious three-year-old feet; the sound of her wail when her ears were pierced, but later, watching for hours as she admired the opal gems in the bathroom mirror. I’m standing in the open pantry of our darkened home, the clock above the kitchen stove reading 3:12 a.m. I grope the shelves blindly for chamomile tea, knowing I’d hidden a box somewhere, but also certain it would take much more than chamomile tea to help me sleep. I see Mia making her First Communion, see the distaste on her face when she first laid the Body of Christ on her tip of her tongue; I hear her laugh about it later, alone in her bedroom, just she and me, about how hard it was to chew and swallow, about how she almost choked on the wine. And then it hits me like a load of bricks, this realization that suddenly overwhelms me: my baby might be dead, and there, in the middle of the pantry, in the middle of the night, I begin to weep; falling to the floor, I press the ends of my pajamas to my face to stifle the sound.
