She shook her head. She knew that he knew it, too. He’d wanted to go. He’d done everything right. And now, when her breaths were shallow and her chest hurt, Izabel felt she didn’t deserve him. She didn’t deserve any of them.

From the other room, Izabel heard Cami laugh. It was one of Izabel’s favorite sounds, when someone else made her laugh. When Cami was having a moment of joy that Izabel was not a part of. When Izabel was in another room, having an entirely different feeling, like despair.

    Chapter Eighteen

Kaito fed the girls salmon that he found in the freezer while Izabel took a shower and checked the house again for left-behind things that might trigger her in the morning. When the boxes were full, Kaito piled them in the utility closet where no one had any reason to look at them again. Paz wrote that their things would come tomorrow.

“Everyone full?” Kaito asked, over the sound of a children’s television show.

Izabel peeked into the room and saw that Jana was leaning over to watch Cami’s tablet with her.

“I want Mommy to put me to bed,” Cami said.

“That’s fine,” Kaito said, “but that’s not what I asked. Are you full? Are you ready?”

Cami nodded.

Izabel walked over to them, hair still wet, and scooped up Cami. “Of course I will put you to bed!”

Jana went into her room without a word. Izabel took Cami to the bathroom where Cami peed and brushed her teeth, and Izabel put a little diaper cream around her anus that never stopped being red.

In bed, Izabel sang her a song her mother used to sing her, about baby chicks: “Los pollitos dicen, ‘pío pío pío,’ cuando tienen hambre y cuando tienen frio. La gallina busca el maíz y el trigo, les da la comida y les presta abrigo. Bajos sus dos alas, acurrucaditos, duermen los pollitos hasta el otro día.”

“Will you kiss my head?” Cami said. “I’m scared.”

“Why are you scared?” Izabel asked.

Cami didn’t answer.

“I was scared of my house when I was little,” Izabel said, which was true. She used to run up the stairs from her mother’s basement as if the dark could bite her. And, more foolishly, as if some true danger couldn’t reach her after she’d closed the basement door. “But this house is small,” Izabel said. “I walked all over it.” She got louder. “I looked in every corner.” She threw her arms out and then put them, in fists, on her hips. “I’m aware and in charge of every inch of this house!” She kissed Cami on her head as Cami giggled.