We scratched up the paint on the walls with our bear claws. The walls had been painted over so many times in cheap rubbery paint that the layers came off in great big sheets, exactly like tree bark. This is the real thing! I said in my growly honeycomb voice. I told E, This is what bears do to sharpen their claws. If we were bears, our claws would be so sharp now, we could slice right through the door.

We made toast and E and I buttered it with big melting swipes and set hunks of cheese on top. We crunched it up sitting on the rental-company sofa and we didn’t care at all about the crumbs. We rolled around on top of them and let them fall through all the cracks between the cushions. I unstuffed the couch pillows looking for something, I can’t remember what, keys maybe, but we made that a game too, so it would be fun. Foam and plastic rental-company feathers flying up everywhere in the air and then down around us as we cuddled on the sofa. Has someone been pinching your arm? I asked E, looking at it. Red marks crept all over her smooth skin. She didn’t answer.

I sat on the sofa and nursed B until he fell asleep. Perhaps we all slept. Who knows? It could have been the middle of the night.

When I woke up it was dark outside. B was still on top of me sleeping in his soft full-bellied baby way. I slid him carefully down into his crib and went to go find E. E, I said. E, in my soft voice. She didn’t answer. E, I said, where are you? Where are you where are you? I was creeping along the hallway towards the bedrooms bent over almost double like an old witch limping through the forest with her basket of apples. Or maybe I was loping like a wolf. It was the middle of the night, so anything was possible.

E, I said, E, it’s me. Where are you? It was so dark in the hall. I couldn’t see a thing and the dry dry cracked backs of my hands rustled against the walls like dead leaves. There was a light on in her bedroom, and a soft humming coming like singing from her room. Good evening, the hush-soft humming could have said. Good night, with roses covered.

E, I said, but my voice was too quiet for anyone to have heard me, it was as if the apartment itself was gulping down my words, was drinking up any sound that I could make. Perhaps I could have screamed right then and no one would have heard me. There was a noise at the front door, the hushed slip of a long coat gliding. Had I locked the door? Had I remembered to? It wasn’t M outside in the hall, coming back from wherever he had been, it wasn’t him. It didn’t feel like him. There was a scraping against the door that could have been a knock, could have been knuckles on wood.