“I’m going to make some tea,” Joy said, demonstrating an excellent grasp of reading the room. She rested her hand on my dad’s back for a moment, then beat a hasty retreat into the kitchen.

“Stevie, what is going on?” my dad asked, closing the door and locking it automatically. He never used to do that in Connecticut—you didn’t need to lock your doors in Stanwich. I wondered how long it had taken him to get in the habit of doing this in Manhattan. “Where is your mother?”

“She didn’t come in,” I said, walking down the hallway into the apartment. I had a feeling that if I stayed too near the door, I’d be tempted to just flee when things got hard, and I wanted to take away that possibility.

“You… came in by yourself?”

“I came in with Kat.”

My dad looked around, as though maybe she was about to materialize. “Then where is Kat?”

“I don’t know, actually. We got separated. I haven’t seen her for hours.”

“Honey,” my dad said, walking into the small living room and sitting down on the couch. He shook his head and I noticed in that moment just how tired he looked, his face more lined than I remembered it. Seeing how it was after ten, was probably about to get ready for bed, and having his teenage daughter show up and not be forthcoming probably hadn’t been on his agenda tonight. He ran his hand over his face, and his new wedding ring—platinum, not gold—flashed in the lamplight at me for just a moment. “I don’t understand.”

“Me neither.” I took my coat off and set the bag with my heels down at my feet. Not only was I getting hot, but I wanted to let him know I wasn’t planning on going anytime soon. I was going to stay here and say what I’d come to say. I sat on the chair across from him and dug my nails into my palms.

I could hear my cue, even though it was a script I’d never seen before. But I could feel that it was coming, knew that at any moment the real scene would begin. And you weren’t allowed to avoid a fight scene in a play; I wasn’t going to let myself do it here, in this living room, where even though the audience was smaller, the stakes were so much higher. I took a breath—it was already coming out shaky and I hadn’t even started yet. This did not seem like a great beginning.