The first thing was the sound. Not a sound at all, in fact — a not-sound: the absence of the thing she had been hearing, which was her mother’s breathing. Vivien had been sitting close, very close, the way she did only at the worst of times, when she could not bring herself to speak but could not bring herself to leave either. Maeve had been hearing her mother’s breathing for thirty-one days, in the part of her that had been awake, in the part of her that had been the part of the waking up. Th...