I let her yell and resisted the impulse to cover my ears. She was so loud. And so angry! I never knew what to do with angry people. It was amazing, watching someone in real life become furious. All the social polity, all the fear, all the masks dropped away. People were so rarely nakedly fearless in normal life.

But in Krystal I saw no danger, only hurt.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. I opened my mouth to say that it was simply easier not to tell her, but realized at the last moment that that was probably the wrong line to follow. I tried again.

“I just had so many things to prepare for,” I said, “so many people to see and talk with. I didn’t ignore you on purpose, I swear.”

Right away she deflated. The color receded from her face, she slumped; I feared she would crumple to the floor. She didn’t, though. She sat down on the arm of my recliner and pouted. “I just don’t understand why you couldn’t tell me. I thought we were friends. Family.”

“We are friends,” I told her. Sensing another teary breakdown coming, I added, “And family.”

She sat there, her arms limp in her lap. Her eyes were downcast and I swear she looked like she was about to fall asleep. I stayed quiet, praying she would leave. I was bored.

“I know why you avoid me, you know.” Her voice was hard and low.

I pretended I didn’t hear her. Instead, I turned and walked into my kitchen. “Are you hungry?” I said. My voice was neutral, even friendly. There were certain rhythms in conversations, I knew, and I hoped to seize upon this lull to segue into something else, a benign distraction. My mother had been a pro at this, steering potentially explosive conversations back into calm, glacial waters. I opened my fridge and bent down, peering into it. “I have a leftover Lean Cuisine, some soup I made Wednesday, some iced tea.”

“Bonnie,” she said.

I scooted things around in the fridge like I was looking for something. But my shelves were pretty bare.

“Do you sleep here?”

My head snapped around. She was still sitting on the recliner arm but was looking down at the chair itself with interest. My pillow and blankets were tucked into a pocket that hung off the other arm, and my alarm clock was on the stand beside it.

“What?”

“Do you sleep here? Are those bedsheets?”

I was still holding the fridge door open. “Are you hungry or not?”

Suddenly she stood up, her eyes fixed on the hallway. I read her mind and, trying to play it cool, moved toward her, but she had already covered half the distance to my bedroom door.

“What are you doing?” I said, but the words came out more as an angry bark, and when she saw my alarm it drove her faster toward my bedroom door, which made me spring toward her, and I could see fright on her face but also excitement—she was excited to get a reaction out of me, finally, the bitch, and then she had her hand on the knob and was turning it (I had been visiting the room so frequently I kept forgetting to lock it), and then it was over: she was standing at the open door and looking at my collection.