A cool façade got me through the day. The inner avalanche was somehow not apparent on the outside—this had always been the case with me. I held myself together even as I worried that I might pass out. I told my friend the story over lunch at Gracias Madre, aware that I was recounting it, not feeling it. I heard the words coming out of my mouth, I registered her kind, stricken face across the table, but part of me had levitated and was now hovering, as if the story weren’t my own.
