“Umm. If you’re okay, I think I’m gonna go.” I make my way back to the sloping pile of papers I slid down to get in.

“Don’t be silly.”

I look at her. Ready to run.

“Don’t go out the window.” She waves her arm toward the hall. “You can go out the front door.”

I follow her down a passage, my shoulders brushing the piles of stuff on either side. She has to walk sideways to squeeze through.

Stepping out the front door’s like being reborn. I suck in a lungful of air.

She flicks on the porch light. I’m surprised to see the front of her house still looks normal. The same as yesterday: two armchairs and a small chest that acts as a coffee table with a collection of mugs. No hint of the chaos inside.

She gestures me to a seat, getting her breath back. “That was a bit of a scare. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t heard me.”

I sit, not sure where to look. I want to ask about the house but I don’t know where to start. “Has . . . has your house always been like that?”

She stares at me. I look at her hands. She arranges the mugs on the chest into a neat row. “No. I was tidy once. If you can believe it. Organized.”

Organized isn’t a word I’d use for that place.

Or is it? The piles, the boxes. Maybe it would be organized if there wasn’t so much of it. It must have taken her years. I look at her face. Not so mean as yesterday. I swallow and ask what I’m pretty sure is a rude question. “How—?” I wave vaguely at the house.

She shrugs. “How does anything happen? Suddenly and slowly all at the same time. Inevitable as the tide.” She rubs at a spot on her hand. “And just as hard to push back.”

I think about the things I’ve collected since you’ve been gone. The way I search them out and place them carefully on the porch. Collecting something to fill the space. To mark it.

“I had all these things. I know it’s silly.” She looks down at the bruises pushing out of her veiny shin. “Dangerous. But I couldn’t let go. And everything new that came in, well, that had to stay too. Then there’s so much stuff, where would I start? Even if I could throw it away.” She shakes her head and sniffs, changes her face back to the one I recognize, the old-goat face. “Anyway. I don’t know what I’m doing telling you. What are you, nine?”