The phone lay silent in her hand. She was alone, again. And had to keep doing what she’d decided to do—just be. Right now that meant closing the doors of the kitchen, opening up the telephone, and putting the SIM card on the kitchen counter, cutting it up into tiny, tiny pieces, pouring acetone into a pot and dropping the pieces into it. And as they slowly melted away, wrapping a kitchen towel around the phone and hitting it with a hammer until it was impossible to ever put it back together again. The new one was exactly where Piet told her, hidden behind the ventilation cover on the bathroom wall. She’d had time to check that it worked and settle on the sofa when Hugo appeared out of nowhere and sank down beside her.

“Sweetie, did I wake you?”

“I was awake. The whole time. So I heard.”

“What?”

“Everything.”

“What did you hear, Hugo?”

“Dad called.”

“What makes you think it was him . . .”

“Mom—please? You hammered the phone. It smells like acetone. Dad does that. And I know why. So no one can find us.”

She hugged him. Tight.

“Go to bed now, sweetie.”

Hugo stayed where he was.

“We have to be ready, Mom.”

He turned to her, really looked at her.

“Like Dad always is. Totally prepared. For danger. I know we’re in danger.”

Hugo sat on the sofa, holding his mother’s hand. Because it was nice. And because she wanted him to. When she next asked him to go to bed again, he did. He had a plan. He’d wait her out. Pretend to be sleeping. Until she fell asleep. He had a good trick—every time he felt his eyelids getting heavy he’d pinch his thigh hard, because that was the closest to his hand, and he didn’t want Mom to notice.