It was impossible to break the news with those words, the tragedy blunted by the silly alliteration.

Dan passed away, -on, -over—these wouldn’t work either because their friends knew she didn’t speak like this; the strangeness would distract them. Those specific phrasal verbs were for the religious, the type of older person who would refer to diabetes as having sugar.

Dan’s gone might work unless someone, confused, asked the obvious question, Where?

He was young, healthy. It would take persuasion to convince them, language she didn’t have.

She made a tight seal with her lips—stoic, impenetrable—then let her head slip under the rim of bathwater to mute her ringing phone.