She wanted to ask a hundred questions. She’d start with: What year, what month, what day?

But all she said was, “Why did you come?”

“My mom had found out my dad was sick. She was pretty desperate for help.”

Nora thought about Donny—how he’d been good at hanging pictures and at fixing the dryer hoses in the basement when they got clogged. How he’d always been the one to put in everyone’s window AC units, back before they’d gotten central air, a huge, expensive project that Nonna had said he’d done all the legwork for. How he always hosed off all the outdoor furniture when it got dirty in the spring and summer, even though he himself never really used it. How he’d fed all those cats, for God’s sake. They weren’t even his.

“And Donny . . . ?”

“Didn’t help,” Will said grimly.

Nora could only really blame her loyalty for what she said next—her desperate instinct to bridge the gap between the Donny she’d known and the Donny this man in her bed was describing.

“Donny never really seemed to have much money,” she said quickly. “Maybe he—”

Will made a noise, something too flat to be called a laugh. “She didn’t ask him for money.”

“Oh.” It was barely a sound, barely a breath. She felt cold again, almost like the fever was back, but she knew that wasn’t it. She knew that wasn’t it at all.

“She asked him to take me.”

Part of her wanted to turn on a light.

The one on her nightstand would do—it was small and shaded; it gave off the kind of soft glow that was perfect for the in-betweens of her day: when she was waking up, when she was winding down. This moment, with Will—it felt like both, somehow. It felt like the beginning and the end of something, all at once, and so maybe that’s why the other part of her didn’t want to turn on any light at all.

“For the summer?” she whispered.

“No,” he said, in that same flat, matter-of-fact tone. “For good.”

She swallowed, scratchiness in her throat reasserting itself. It was probably time for more medicine, or maybe for another shift over that hot bowl Will had made her use yesterday, but she wouldn’t have moved for all the decongestants and hot bowls in the whole entire world.

“Could be that she didn’t mean it,” Will said, and Nora felt such terrible certainty about where he’d learned his I’ve seen worse bedside manner. Maybe he’d been I’ve seen worse–ing himself his whole life, only to feel better about this one awful moment.

“Or that she would’ve changed her mind, eventually. I don’t really know. But Donny, he didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”