But it’d been beyond her, to breathe right again, to think straight again. I’m overreacting, part of her wanted to say, the same way he’d said to her last week, but she’d locked up, her mind like a thunderstorm: Nonna gone, Donny gone, Donny not even the nice man she’d always thought he’d been. Deepa leaving Verdant, Austin leaving San Diego. Nora’s bathroom not like it’d always been; Nora thinking she might leave Verdant, too. Jonah in rehab. Jonah somewhere else altogether. She’d looked across the room at Will and suddenly it was like he was the wind that had been taken out of her; gusting through and blowing things apart. It didn’t matter that she knew it wasn’t really true; it didn’t matter that she knew she was being unfair.

She’d still asked him to go.

Stop, Nora, she scolded herself. You don’t have time for this; you can talk to him later. She needed to pack this bag; she needed a shower and a change of clothes; she needed to figure out what was next. She could deal with Will later. She moved quickly, opening Jonah’s closet to find the duffel bag he’d told her about, stuffing in the things he’d asked for, checking off items on her phone as she went along. When she finally had it all, she revisited her first instinct, going back to Jonah’s room to quickly make up his bed, hoping she wasn’t overstepping.

She was pulling his door closed behind her when she saw Marian on the landing.

“Where is he?” she said.

Nora lowered her brow, concerned over Marian’s apparent confusion. “He’s in the hosp—”

“Will,” Marian interrupted, coming down the hall toward her. “Where is he?”

“Oh, um,” she said, hoping she could pull off this lie. “He had to go into work.”

“That’s not what Jonah said. Jonah said he was there speaking to the doctor this morning, and then you kicked him out.”

Nora blinked. “I didn’t. How did he—he was asleep when I left.”

Marian shrugged. “Guess he didn’t sleep for long. He called us once you were gone. Probably he was faking.”

Nora sighed, stepped across the hall to her own door. “How did he sound? Mrs. Salas and I are going back soon. If you want to come—”

“What I want is to speak to Will about what the doctor said.”

“I spoke to the doctor too, Marian. You can ask me.”

“Yes, but Will is a professional. I don’t trust doctors, you know that.”

Nora ignored the jolt of satisfaction she felt at the revelation that Marian had moved Will from the category of “doctors” to “people she trusted.” Instead, she huffed in annoyance, opening her door, knowing already Marian—Marian who had once very much disliked Will Sterling!—was going to follow her in.