It doesn’t mean they’re not impacted. Lute islanders have lost limbs. Friends. Our gardener will come home with shrapnel scars and PTSD, but everybody acts so blasé about it all, like there’s some force field protecting us and our joining in with the war effort is just a jolly show of patriotism.

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to realize how strange that is.

Avery’s footsteps echo nearer and nearer in the hall, and I’m struck with fresh relief that her injury kept her from going off to war with the other young women of Lute once she turned eighteen. I’m glad she’s home, safe and sound.

Emma disappears around the corner in a flash and returns dragging Avery by the hand. “Ayvey! Did you see the pony?”

Avery glances back at me, laughing in confusion. “Um.”

I shrug, just as bemused. “She’s obsessed.”

Thankfully, Emma’s mind switches channels quickly. She leads Avery up to the costume closet, Max hot on their trail, his whole body a wag.

Charlie starts away to join them, but I grab him first and whisper, “Seen Dad?”

“The study,” he whispers back. “He’s cross.”

“What’s he cross about?”

“Technology.”

He squirms, and I let him escape, snorting under my breath. Technology is the usual answer. But when I start tromping up the stairs, I hear an uncharacteristic pitch to the growling coming from the direction of Hugh’s study. The rumble of it stalls my step just before I get to the top. Even with the thick oak door shut, I can hear Hugh muttering, swearing, tossing things around.

My hand lingers on the doorknob for a heartbeat before I decide to turn it.

His face is sickly white, sweat beading on his forehead, his brown hair slicked to it. There are electronics piled on the desk. Cables, old adapters, and more—thick leather-bound books from the shelves, an open-lidded wooden box that looks like a fancy junk drawer. What is he doing?

He doesn’t seem to recognize me for a second when he glances up, and then anger floods his eyes.

He holds up our modem like he’s accusing me of breaking it. “I can’t tell if it’s this or the bloody router.”

“It could just be the signal today,” I say, my eyes drifting to that wooden box. “It’s been in and out all month. All year, really.”