Elsa and I looked at each other. I got to my feet, was at the doorway to Vee’s bedroom in four steps.

Licia moved quickly away from Vee’s desk. She turned to me. “You shouldn’t allow it,” she said, her voice low and calm.

“It’s rated fifteen,” said Vee, “you cretinous freak.”

“Vee,” I said, “please.”

“She ripped the controller out of my hand, Dad.”

I looked across at Licia.

“It’s inappropriate,” said Licia in the same calm, measured voice. “Surely you can see that?”

“I’m am trying so fucking hard with her, Dad,” said Vee. “Really I am.”

“We allow this game, Licia,” I said. “I’d expect you to remember that.”

“You shouldn’t. She just shotgunned a girl in the face.”

“Well, we do.”

Vee turned her arm over, thrust it in front of my face. Red welts where Licia had gripped her wrist, the nail marks still visible.

How quickly that old pattern was reasserting itself: Licia judgmentally pulling rank and Vee—always so quick to anger—punching low, insulting her sister’s intelligence. Even now, even as Licia floated beautifully from room to room like a traveler returned from a strange land, wearing strange new clothes and speaking in strange new words: changed in ways we could not hope to understand.

Here was Elsa now, watching from the doorway. She sent me a questioning glance.

“Licia,” I said, watching Elsa all the while, “do I really have to explain to you the difference between real and imagined violence?”

Elsa gave an approving little nod. I turned back toward Licia.

“Damn right,” said Vee.

Licia looked at me. “You don’t have to explain that difference to me. I’m not stupid.”

I heard a telephone. An unfamiliar ringtone, tinny and small.

Licia stiffened. She looked down at the little gray canvas bag that she wore at her waist. She looked at her mother, then looked at me.

“Do you need to get that?” I said.

She stood there, paralyzed, as if she didn’t dare lift the phone from its bag. I looked at Elsa, who was staring at Licia, eyes flashing white.

“Why don’t you take the call, honey?” she said.

Licia opened the bag, took from it the simple gray phone, holding it in two fingers as if it were a foreign object. She turned it over and checked the screen. She looked at Elsa, then at me. She walked across Vee’s room and opened the door into her own.

I said, “Should we—”

I heard Vee say, “Yeah, just use my room as a corridor, Licia!”

I heard Licia’s door slam shut.

“We should . . .” said Elsa. She stepped into Vee’s room.

We stood, the three of us, looking toward Licia’s bedroom.

“What is this, Mum?” said Vee quietly. But Elsa simply shook her head.

We could hear Licia’s voice through her door, though we could not make out her words.