I dragged myself into the kitchen, where trays of croissants and pastry awaited, tucked under plastic wrap. Apple tart, too, and tiny muffins. Cricket had laid out small cans of soda and sparkling water; the ice bucket stood at one end of the counter, ready to be filled. I drew out a chair from the round wooden table, wishing that I could magic the stuff away.

The longer I sat, staring out the window at the winter trees, the more I thought of this kitchen, and my childhood, and my father, who inhabited this house the way he inhabited the six syllables of his own name: boldly, fully, never lacking confidence. He’d take his place across from me, eating the sugary cereal Cricket rarely allowed for her children, telling us Norse god Loki stories, reading Anansi the Spider, or doing his perfect leprechaun voice. It was those moments, the glimpses of safety, predictability, when I understood what having a good father felt like. This is what we do at breakfast. Here’s how he looks at me. Here’s what he says. They made the other ones—the bad ones—bearable. I loved—love—my father, is what I’m saying, even though it was proving very risky to do so.

I pulled my necklace out from my black dress. For my seventeenth birthday, he had gifted me a sixpence. Your mother wore this in her shoe, he’d said, when she walked down the aisle. May it bring you fortune. Even then, there was no pretending he was a perfect father, what with his ungovernable moods and torch-hot temper. But I’d been touched by the gesture, thinking it a kind of peace offering, and had a jeweler mount it in a pendant frame before I left for college. I’d worn it today as a tribute.

Cricket called for me as I rubbed the pendant between my fingers. Would she miss me if, instead, I just left, dashed south as quickly as my kitten heels could take me? Past M, over the canal, under the freeway, straight to the boardwalk, where I could hurl my father’s lovely gift into the depths of the Potomac and allow the ancient currents to carry it away for good. An old clock clunked into the top of the hour, and I stood, took a few steps toward the kitchen door. Then I stopped. Who was I kidding? I’d get about three blocks in these pointy, pinchy shoes.

I found Cricket in the parlor, resting in one of the cream armchairs by the fireplace. Wallis was curled on the sofa, gnawing at her cuticles, which she’d do until they bled. I sat at Cricket’s feet, on the rug, hand loomed, no doubt. A gift from one of my father’s trips abroad.