We sat side by side on the third step, looking out. The building was cool in the summer heat: old and grand, and nothing like ours. The world beyond looked peaceful. You couldn’t see the glass fragments that littered the street outside.

“Okay, so, there are two beds in Julie’s room. And I was sitting on the spare bed, and Julie was sitting on her bed, and there’s just this flash. I mean, it was bright. Julie was just a silhouette. It was so weird. And then the window fell away.”

“It fell away?”

“It was like it bent inward first. You’d swear it bent inward. And I kept thinking it was going to shatter, and we’d be stumbling bleeding into the street. It was like I could see that. And then there’s this moment where Julie’s looking at me, and I’m looking at Julie, and she reaches across and takes my hand. And at the same moment the window was sucked out. The whole pane, and the wood and everything just kind of pivoted on the lower edge and fell away. And there’s just this really creepy silence . . .

“It felt like the birds stopped singing. And then you heard this huge roar. Like the end of the world. And we both turned over on the beds and put our hands over the backs of our heads. We knew what to do. Which is also weird. And then finally you hear the glass shattering in the street. And we just lay there facedown on the beds until Julie’s mom came to get us.”

I reached out, pulled her gently toward me.

“Mum’s going to say I’m dramatizing.”

“She won’t.”

Then Vee wrapped her arms very tightly around me, and I wiped the tears from her face and told her everything was going to be okay, and this time she allowed me to comfort her.

The streets had emptied. At the sound of rotors Vee stopped and looked up. A news helicopter. It made a lazy sweep toward the palace, then tipped and headed toward town.

“Dad,” she said, “about Licia . . .”

In my pocket my phone was vibrating against my thigh. Vee made to speak.

“I’m sorry, love. I think this could be important.”

“But Dad—”

I raised the phone to my ear.

“This is Lori from WXWD in Washington, D.C.” A pleasant American singsong. “Am I speaking with Cal Curtis? Dan said now might a good moment to bring your eyewitness testimony to our listeners.”

“Tell Dan I’m collecting my daughter. Could we speak in half an hour?”

“Sure. Speak then.”

I hung up.

Vee looked at me, reproachful. “What?”

“Your Uncle Dan wants me to talk about what people are feeling after the explosion.”

“What are they feeling, then?”

I laughed. “Maybe it would be better if you did the piece. You have a headset and everything.”