She heard the front door open and Katie ran to meet Phillip. Katie giggled, then shrieked, and she knew Phillip had scooped her up in his arms. She stood and walked down the hall.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” He set Katie on the floor, and she gripped his leg.

“Again, Daddy,” she said.

“Not right now. We can play later. Go color a picture for me.”

“No,” she said.

“You need to finish your diorama,” Josie said. “Do that and you can use the hair ribbon.”

“Really?” Katie asked.

“Yes.”

Katie ran into the kitchen, and Josie looked down at the floor. Deep in the carpet was a perfectly round cigarette burn from the tenants before, and she covered and uncovered it with her big toe. She knew he was waiting for an apology from this morning, but offering him one seemed like bandaging a cut knee when she knew the whole leg would have to go.

“What’s going on with you?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know.” It was an impulsive answer, and after she said it, she wished she could take it back. She did know, and to deny it was as silly as thinking that by leaving Devesh, she could also leave the familiar prickly place she had spent much of her life occupying.

“Well … something’s going on, and if you don’t tell me, we can’t do anything about it.”

“It’s not you,” she said.

“Good answer,” he scoffed.

She looked at him and then at her toe again. What was she to tell him? He would be disgusted, or at least think her pathetic, or perhaps—worse yet—he would tell her he could try and do those things. The thought made her push her back hard into the wall. Last week, during a pointless fight over whether the restaurant napkins should rest next to or on the plates, she pushed him so relentlessly that he finally grabbed her roughly by the wrists and told her to stop. She let out an impulsive cry, and he pulled away, scalded. She had shocked him or he had shocked himself. Either way, he was so shaken that he stood there stunned, apologizing over and over. “Josie,” he had said, “I’m sorry; I would never … you know I wouldn’t …” He stumbled and stuttered, and she looked at him and wanted to slap his concerned-looking face. She was disgusted by his tenderness, then disgusted by her own reaction.

Now, the thought of Phillip taking her chin in one hand and, with the other, slapping her swiftly across the face made her cringe. She had melted to him precisely because he was everything Devesh was not—soft and accommodating. He did not make her want to get down on her knees and press her forehead against the tops of his feet. Phillip was loving and sweet, but he could not make her bow her head with a single look, could not make her chest and stomach and lungs unfold like lotus flowers. This thing, whatever it was, could not be manufactured. It was either there or it was not. You did not bring people back from the dead simply because you wanted to, and you did not pull that hunger from your pocket like a penny.