She turned to me. “Mum stopped shooting, right? That’s the end point of this story? We’re not gun people.”

“Your mum realized each of those targets could have been a human being.”

Vee took off her headset. “Fine.”

“Vee, honey . . . it’s not that we don’t understand your need for escapism.”

“You don’t, Dad.”

“Sure I do.”

She turned for a moment. “I’m pissy and I’m mean and I don’t deserve a sister.”

I ruffled her hair. “Only sometimes.”

“Yeah. Well, this time I called her Alicia Don’t-Call-Me-Stupid Curtis.”

“Okay, that’s not great, Vee.”

“I know.” She bit down hard on her lower lip.

“Want to tell me what provoked it?”

“She called me unhygienic. Like I smelled because I didn’t shower before school. I don’t smell. And Licia showers way too much. Like three times a day. Anyway, I feel terrible for saying it.”

I took her in my arms and held her for a while.

“Do I smell unhygienic to you?” she said at last.

I laughed. “You smell of soap and candy.”

The sound of footsteps on the computer speakers. Vee pulled away, swung in her seat, picked up her controller. On-screen her avatar picked up a shotgun, crept into the shelter of a bush. Another figure appeared on-screen. Vee’s avatar sprang from the bush and fired twice, killing her opponent.

A key in the lock.

I heard the front door swing open. A bag dropped to the floor. Vee’s eyes flicked toward the hall. “You should be asking Mum about that priest guy.” I heard Elsa take off her shoes, heard her pad through to the living room. The television came on.

Vee was looking up at me, making sure I had understood her meaning. I nodded.

We had both seen how her mother reacted to Bror.

Ten

In the living room Elsa sat slumped in the sofa.

“I went to Hedda’s for coffee,” she said. “I walked home.”

“I waited for you. Which left Vee looking after Franklin.”

“Sorry.” She avoided my eye, flicked the channel on the TV. “The police and their fucking questions, you know?”

“Franklin is asleep, so it’s all good.”

Something stopped me from asking her about Bror. Some need to digest what I’d seen before sharing it with her. That strange sense of godliness, as the smokers parted around him.

She took my hand, though she did not look at me. She seemed worn out. Done in.

I sat down beside her. On CNN a woman in a red two-piece was looking down at a large notebook. “Mounting criticism of your response during this rapidly unfolding crisis. Particularly on the issue of locking down the islands after the explosion in town.”

“The Internet stuff bothered me,” I said.

Elsa turned. “What Internet stuff?”

Had the police really not asked her about the websites?