“Your father would be alive if it wasn’t for you.”

And when I did snap, when I shouted back, defended myself, cried, there it was, proof that I was the problem. She’d grin, slow, and finally relax.

“There she is,” she’d say.

I learned to go numb, to stay rational, look for the quickest door out.

The quickest door right now is behind me.

“I don’t know why, but you’re stabbing around for any hurtful thing to get me to react, and I’m not going to do it, Hugh. I am not interested.” I turn my back and step brightly into the kitchen. “Another cup of tea?”

I close the door behind me. Let Hugh have the rest of the house. He’s right in one sense. Today, I could fucking leave it.

Marit stands, wincing as her bleeding feet connect with the cold stone floor. “I will go.”

“No. What? Go where?” I throw my arms up, breathless now.

I picture Lute Island without a sea, just high walls surrounding us. A prison. Or, no, an arena. Somebody’s watching us. I can almost picture them, and then they slip away.

I reach for Marit. “Stay. Please. We want you here.”

Her eyes lock on mine, and even if she’s never heard of the Day, of the danger that’s hovering over this place, an understanding passes between us: there’s safety in numbers. Even if it’s just the illusion of safety, it’s comforting.

I think of Hugh, alone here all morning, wondering where I’d gone, whether I would make it back.

Sally bustles in with bandages and hydrogen peroxide. “All right now, let’s have a look at you.”

I say, “Excuse me for a second,” and swing past her into the hall.

If some gee-whiz part of me expected my husband to be waiting for me out there, maybe even ready with an apology, it’s quickly eviscerated. He’s not in the living room or the study. I follow the glittery trickle of giggles upstairs to the children’s playroom, and that’s where he is, standing in the doorway. Past him, I see Emma and Charlie climbing all over poor Avery like she’s a piece of playground equipment. She still has that incongruous dancer’s strength. She hoists Emma on one arm while arching her back into a horse for Charlie to ride and makes it all look like art. What a shame she couldn’t make a career out of it.

Hugh watches them just as he watched me from the front door. His body is softer now, but every time the children’s feet leave the ground, he tenses like someone’s prodded him with a Taser. Their toes touch carpet and his shoulders drop. Safe, ease. Unsafe, terror.