You're safe, I remembered whispering to Quintana when I first saw her in the ICU at UCLA. I'm here. You're going to be all right. Half of her skull had been shaved for surgery. I could see the long cut and the metal staples that held it closed. She was again breathing only through an endotracheal tube. I'm here. Everything's fine . . . I would take care of her. It would be all right. It also occurred to me that this was a promise I could not keep. I could not always take care of her. I could not never leave her. She was no longer a child. She was an adult. Things happened in life that mothers could not prevent or fix. --JOAN DIDION, The Year of Magical Thinking