He’s persistent. Careful, Ruth. He really doesn’t know the basics of what went down. Or perhaps he does know, and this is a test. Maybe he wants to feel powerful, to make me say it. He’s hoping my face will crease or go pale. That I’ll act grief-stricken and traumatized. Is that what he wants? Is that what she wants? Well, I’m not playing that game: I’ve played it my whole life.

“There was a problem,” I say. “Something happened. It was better for everyone that I leave.” It was better for everyone except me.

“A problem,” he says. He slices ham with a ridiculously sharp knife, shaking his head as he does so. “You and your sister have something in common, I see. Not big on sharing details from the past. I wonder why that is.”

I blink and say nothing. When the omelet arrives, it tastes of cloth, and Chase isn’t generous with the salt. I eat silently, and as soon as I’m chewing the last bite, he whips the plate away.

“Did Alex and you decide if I could stay here?” I ask as he stashes the plate in the dishwasher.

“You need to talk to your sister.” He won’t look me in the eye. “That’s her department.”

“Her department, but your apartment. Interesting.” I cough into my hand. “I think I’ll take a shower … if that’s okay.”

He sweeps one hand in front of him, a magnanimous gesture although his expression doesn’t match it. “Knock yourself out.”

I slide off the stool, grab my bag from the hook by the front door, then creep to the bathroom, where I kneel, unpacking everything I brought with me onto the mat. A passport, outdated. A toothbrush, fuzzed with lint from the bottom of the bag. I forgot toothpaste anyway. My purse, old-fashioned. It used to be Mom’s. Eli’s Folgers coffee tin that I’ve wrapped shut with Scotch tape. A weathered old clothespin, the wood smooth as silk with R-A-W scratched into the side, that I held all the way here on the bus. And the photo, taken on the farm the summer before everything went wrong. I’m thirteen in this picture, so Alex must be eight. Pim, my brother, he’s four. It’s the summer when we were all still smiling.

I stow everything but the toothbrush and the purse back into my bag and jam it into the cupboard under the sink. She won’t find it. She’s so repulsed by me she would probably never touch my bag anyhow. Then I shower and dress in the same clothes I wore yesterday.

In the living room, Chase is sitting on the couch reading a magazine about fit people.

“I’m going to go check out the town,” I say as I hover by the front door.

He looks up but only for a second.