The optimism of her, the faith that the job hadn’t already been done, reached right inside my rib cage and squeezed. “No,” I said. “I know you won’t. Tell you what: you get Holly to talk as much as she needs to. Just make sure no one ever finds out about it. Including me. OK?”

Olivia’s lips tightened, but she said nothing. I said, “I know it’s not ideal.”

“I thought you were so passionately against her keeping secrets.”

“I am. But it’s a little late for that to be top priority now, so what the hell.”

Liv said, and there was a grating note of exhaustion at the bottom of her voice, “I suppose that translates as, ‘I told you so.’”

“No,” I said, and meant it. I caught the surprise in the quick turn of her head towards me. “Absolutely not. It means that we both fucked up here, you and me, and now the best thing we can do is concentrate on damage limitation. And I trust you to do a pretty impressive job of that.”

Her face was still wary and tired, waiting for the twist. I said, “No hidden meaning this time. I promise. I’m just glad the kid has you for a mother, right now.”

I had taken Liv off guard; her eyes flickered away from mine, and she shifted restlessly in her chair. “You should have told me as soon as you got here. You let me put her to bed as if everything was normal—”

“I know I did. I figured she could do with a bit of normality tonight.”

She moved again, sharply. “I need to check on her.”

“If she wakes up, she’ll call us. Or come down.”

“She mightn’t. I’ll only be a moment—”

And she was gone, hurrying up the stairs as quietly as a cat. There was something weirdly comforting about this little routine. We used to go through it a dozen times a night, back when Holly was a baby: one squeak on the monitor and Olivia would need to go make sure she was still asleep, no matter how often I tried to reassure her that the kid had a fine set of lungs and was well able to let us know if she wanted us. Liv was never afraid of cot death or of Holly falling out of bed and hitting her head or any of the standard-issue parental boogeymen. All she worried about was that Holly might wake up, in the middle of the night, and think she was all alone.

Olivia said, coming back in, “Fast asleep.”

“Good.”

“She looks peaceful. I’ll talk to her in the morning.” She dropped into her chair and pushed her hair out of her face. “Are you all right, Frank? I didn’t even think to ask, but my God, tonight must have been—”

I said, “I’m fine. I should be heading, though. Thanks for the coffee. I needed that.”