I let go of the breath I’ve been holding since I first saw you there. Since I knew it was up to me.

I let go.

THEY STILL DON’T let me leave with Lettie.

They send a car round to my house. Take my keys.

It’s Lettie who thinks to call Oscar’s mum: she still has the card in her jacket pocket.

They let me go with her, a woman I’ve spoken to maybe three times. Over Lettie.

I DON’T ASK about Splinter again. The we’ll see what we can find out answer tells me what I need to know. The way they won’t meet my eyes. I don’t want to know any more.

LUCY TAKES ME home. Makes me up a bed in Oscar’s room. He doesn’t even wake. She gives me some pajamas with cars on them; they’re too big round the waist. She brings me a glass of water.

“Try and get some sleep.” She touches my cheek. “Things won’t seem so bad in the daylight.”

I roll over to face the wall.

What would she know.

DAY 49

SATURDAY

I MUST SLEEP, because when I open my eyes Oscar’s standing at the foot of the bed looking at me.

“There are police at your house.”

I stare at him.

“Mum said not to tell you.” He glances at the door. “But I thought, you know, that you should know.” He’s dressed in jeans and a green woolly jumper. He’s wearing bright red socks. They look warm. He scrunches his toes up on the floorboards. “About the police, I mean.”

I nod. I know what he meant.

I’M STANDING OUTSIDE, on the footpath at our front fence. I don’t remember getting up, or coming out. My toes are warm. I look down. I’m wearing green wool socks, not mine. I can see the fuzziness of them poking out between my shoes and the too-short blue cord pants on my legs. Also not mine. I don’t remember putting any of them on, but here I am, dressed, so I guess I did. There’s a hand on my shoulder. I look up to my left. Lucy.

“Don’t look, Rae.”

I wonder if we came out here together. And why she’s here with me if she doesn’t want me to look. I can feel the weight of her hand through my wool jumper: also not mine.

I turn to see what I shouldn’t be looking at.

Our front door’s open. A man is walking out backward. Pulling something. You. Of course. I knew that, I knew that’s what it would be.