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She does not want music today. Her voice is the sound of a tire deflating so slowly, it is almost inaudible over the hum of the machine. The machines – they have surrounded her since her sophomore year of high school to what would be her sophomore year of college. I have not yet found a way to measure time outside of the normalcy of the healthy. I remember when she could not speak for weeks, wonder what it must have sounded like in that fog, if her heartbeat became the beeping, her breath became one mechanical exhale. Her arms were blades of grass, buckling and lurching as her hands tried to point at letters on the screen. We gave her some headphones, the new Alicia Keys album. We put the headphones over her ears. Eight months later, she can still smile when I walk in the door, still asks for Alicia, the older ones that are so good. She closes her eyes and sings, her head turning back and forth so slightly. I never bring her answers, just questions, lay them at the overflowing stacks at her feet like pebbles. They are too high to step over. I break mine into pieces to make them smaller. Do you want this. What would you like. Is this ok. If I Ain’t Got You never fails; it is the original moment we both fell in love with that fierce voice, that insistent spirit. It is high school. It is whatever happens outside of high school. It is a moment we can meet in for a few minutes, over the beeps and hums and the door opening and shutting. They have so many questions for her. I only have a couple, and the first is, do you want this. Today, she does not want music. I walk back down the hall. The guitar is too heavy in my hand. I do not have a plan after Alicia, after the headphones, the ukulele I brought her one week, which she practiced until the days weren’t as good. Today her eyes are closed, but her head does not sway back and forth. Today, she does not want music, or more questions, and that is all I am to her, and I walk back down the hall.