Wallace settled on a chair Madeline had rescued from the Salvation Army store. A five-dollar special. She’d asked the guy downstairs—the one who frequently played music so loud her own windows shook—to help her pick it up, and together they’d wedged it into the trunk of his car. He’d carried it up by himself, and clearly thought he was going to get something more in return than the cup of tea Madeline gave him. She knew she’d disappointed him, but Madeline had enough trouble in her life without getting entangled with a neighbor. Her mom, who wasn’t good for much, taught her that: Maddy girl, don’t shit where you eat.

Thanks, Mom.

Madeline sat in the other chair, which had remained in the apartment after the previous tenant moved out. Madeline had thrown a sheet over it before she sat in it the first time, hoping to cover it up and eventually forget about the multiple unidentified stains on the upholstery.

Wallace smiled. “I know this is hard. It’s always difficult when a young person dies senselessly.”

It wasn’t a question. Madeline knew she was supposed to look sad, to nod her head and bite her lip. So she did.

“You knew Sophia from Yoga for Life! How long had you been seeing her there?”

“I guess a few months. I started going at the beginning of the summer. I only go once a week. On Tuesday evening they have a pay-what-you-want class, so I go then. I usually put in a dollar. I feel cheap, but it’s all I can afford.”

“Sure. That’s student life. Did you ever socialize with Sophia? Outside of the yoga studio?”

Without meaning to, Madeline looked at the door and then back at Wallace. If asked why her eyes made that dart across the room, Madeline would refer back to her childhood, to the times the police came and asked her questions about her mother or, perhaps, one of her mother’s boyfriends. Madeline felt certain one of those boyfriends—and she couldn’t name the guy or even picture him in her head anymore—gave her the advice never to enter a room without knowing how to get out. The cops, he said, liked to cover all the exits, but if you tried hard enough, you could always find a window, a trash chute, an exhaust vent. . . .

So much worthwhile wisdom from her childhood. She felt certain most of her classmates at Commonwealth had grown up in very different worlds from the one she had grown up in. She tried to embrace the difference, tried to see herself as unique. She knew she’d absorbed it all, knew it was part of who she was. A college education didn’t bleach it all out of her.