A crash a few frightened seconds later shook Therese out of the moment. She saw the girl, Matilda’s friend, Lavi, standing over her father with a broken lamp in her hand. Lionel laid sprawled out on the floor, eyes closed and peaceful, with a streak of red running down the side of his face. No one spoke, and the only sound Therese heard was the woman whimpering. Lavi stood up, still holding the cracked lamp in her hand.

“We should call someone,” Tim said, pushing himself off the ground and feeling his face, which already looked tender. He reached for the telephone and started to dial the police.

Therese looked around and realized they were standing in a circle, like they were playing some silly childhood game and were waiting for the one in the middle to stand up. The woman continued to whimper in a pitch that was quickly escalating. Therese tried to think about what to do, but truly all she wanted was to run. An overwhelming heaviness settled upon her, and she knew that she needed to find Matilda.

“She went to go find her dad,” Daryl said.

The sound of his voice startled her, and she wondered if she was thinking aloud. Why had Matilda gone to find Tim? She had worked so hard to erase him from their lives. She had worked so hard to pretend the things that happened . . . didn’t. Why couldn’t Matilda just let it go? Why couldn’t she simply understand that Tim had made his choice?

The image of her own father snaked its way into her mind. She needed to clear her head, but it was so hard to hear her own thoughts over Sara’s cries. She closed her eyes as sheets of rain slapped against the side of the house. Then, suddenly, the whole room lit up in a bluish white light, and she wasn’t sure if it was thunder that shook the house or the tree that came crashing through the roof.

Like a missile hitting its target, debris from the ceiling landed squarely on the man lying in the middle of the carpet. His hand twitched once and then stopped. She turned to Tim, just as the woman began to wail, but this time she didn’t notice because at that exact moment, a second bolt of lightning hit the house.

Everyone screamed and the girl, Lavi, fell to the ground. Tim was kneeling over her, his hands cradling her head as though it were the most fragile thing he had ever held. She thought about Friendly’s and apples and eggshells. When he looked up at her, she could tell he wanted to speak. She turned her head away, but it didn’t matter because she could still hear his words over the moan of the storm.