Adele starts making pizza, rolling out the dough on a huge marble counter in the kitchen. It takes so long to make that nobody’s hungry by the time it’s done. But we still eat it. Everett and Lynn sit at the table and try to pretend this is a completely normal experience, all of us being together like this. Bonnie and Adele don’t pretend. They pick at their food and avoid looking at each other. I eat quickly and excuse myself from the table as soon as I can.

Everett looks up from his phone. “Before you go, we should discuss something. I’m thinking of hiring a bodyguard for Bonnie when she goes back to school in Toronto.”

Does he have the money for that? “That’s a good idea.” I turn to Lynn. “How long are you planning to stay here?”

She glances at Everett. “I’m not sure. Maybe through the holidays?”

“That’s fine with me,” says Adele. She’s still not sure why I’m here, and neither is Everett. I think only Lynn understands my presence. Maybe she understands better than I do.

It’s so quiet in the bedroom they’ve given me that I can hear every creak, every scurry, imagine every thought. I can hear Whisper’s breathing, and by the rhythm of it, I know she’s awake. When there are no more creaks, scurries, and thoughts, we open the door and walk through the house. The thick rugs and runners down on the floors keep her nails from clicking as she follows me. I check the doors and the windows. Everything is locked up tight, just the way things were the last time I looked.

There’s a flickering light coming from the kitchen. Someone has left the television on, and there’s a rerun of an American morning show playing in the background, on mute.

I find the remote in order to turn it off when, on the screen, I see a man sitting at a stool, a guitar in his hand. Then I’m searching frantically for the button to turn the volume up. The sound comes on, and I lower it until it’s just above a hum. Loud enough that I can hear every note the man plays on the Fender Strat he’s got in his hands. He doesn’t look well, but apart from his gaunt, tired appearance, it doesn’t seem to faze Nate Marlowe that he’s on live television so soon after getting out of the hospital.

He handles it like a pro, goes about strumming like there’s nobody in the world watching. Maybe there isn’t for him, in this moment. This is what music does to him. What it does to me.