“It’s okay,” I say. “He just needs a word.”

I’m back downstairs in the kitchen when Sam reappears with my phone. He slides a look my way as he puts the phone back on the table.

“Too bad about your dad,” I say, and he glances up at me.

“I don’t care,” he says.

“No?” I say.

Sam’s jaw sets. “Why should I? I hate them anyway,” he says. “Both of them.”

I look at him.

“I don’t think you do, Sam.”

He looks back at me, eyes narrow.

“They don’t even like each other, you know. They act like we’re a family but we’re not.”

“Sam…” I don’t know what to say to that. A few weeks ago it would have shocked me to hear it. I’d always assumed Abigail and Dennis had a basically successful marriage, even though they seemed so opposite to each other.

Sam hovers, casting a quick glance towards the window and then back at me.

“She told me she was leaving,” he blurts.

I don’t absorb the words at first, and it takes a couple of seconds before they make sense to me.

“Sam…what exactly are you saying?” I ask, in case despite the obvious interpretation I’ve somehow got it wrong.

He looks at me.

“Mom,” he says, his words careful and hard. “The day she left. She came upstairs and told me she was leaving.”

I stare at my nephew, wrong-footed.

“What did she say to you?”

He looks away.

“She said she was sorry. That there was something”—his brow scrunches—“that she needed to find out about herself. And it meant she had to go away for a few days.” He looks at me. “I asked what it was about and she said she couldn’t tell me just yet, that she needed to learn a little more about it first.” He swallows. “She said she had to leave while Dad was gone or she wouldn’t be able to leave at all. But she said that it would just be for a few days,” he repeats.

My head’s spinning.

I look at my nephew.

“And she told you not to tell us this?”

According to Dennis, Sam was upstairs with his headphones on and heard nothing, not even the car pulling out.

Sam drops his eyes again.

“No…I just thought everyone would be mad at me. For letting her leave.”

I exhale.

“You didn’t try to stop her?” I say. “You didn’t…try to make her stay?”

The corners of his mouth turn down.

“Oh, Sam, I’m not blaming you—”

“She said it was important,” he says, his voice fierce for a moment, but the fierceness quickly dies, and his eyes move towards the window.

“She said she’d be back before I knew it. But…maybe she won’t.”