The first one's always hard. It's so hard that Dan feels like his mental picture of Miguel takes on a starker shading, higher contrast, deeper darks. Dan's first Christmas without Ellie came so soon after her death that it barely registered, and that seems to be the only blessing of it. It got lost, like most things from that time period, in a blur of substance abuse and everything that came with that.

"There's a reason they call folks 'workaholics.' The job's medicine, same as anything else. Especially the life-saving hero sort of work."

Or atoner work. Dan isn't seeking a way to balance the scales, but, as he glances at Miguel's claws as he hears the nik of keratin on wood, he's starting to circle around the idea that maybe Miguel is and has some means to feel guilt along with the grief. Dan just knows he got his kid killed and can never get her back; any good he does in this life, and he does a lot, is a completely separate matter that can't change that.

"That sounds about right, it being enough to coexist. How are you holding up with a different work project than the one you had?" Dan wonders if a project that isn't so directly related to the thing that stole Gabri away engenders the same obsession.