I told him the address. She kept a spare key for me inside the clay terrier on the porch. “The key might not be there anymore,” I said, and realized, with a pang, that it was; she probably came home each day hoping I might have returned. She kept the Colonial Girl cookie tin, with the diamonds, in the closet in her bedroom.

“Harmony,” Dice said, “I trust you now. I trust you. I won’t forget this. Remember the little owl?” he said. “Sometimes it takes a while to learn how to heal.”

And Bay took my shoulders and walked with me into the next room. I wondered if Dice was, in his way, paying me a compliment. Maybe I was a wild animal. And someday, all he’d have to do would be to point out the window, and I would be free.

Bay said, “Diamonds, huh?” Something unfamiliar in his voice—gratitude, or sadness.

“My grandmother’s.”

* * *

I joined the others who had stayed behind to prepare a staggering breakfast for the family members who had returned. My brothers and sisters didn’t know that Dice had welcomed me into his trust, but that morning everyone seemed particularly purposeful and beautiful, like the first day I’d arrived, working together so perfectly that they seemed like they could read each other’s minds. We made cheesy grits and sour-cream porridge and pork chops and pancakes with sorghum and hickory syrup, dumplings boiled in ham water, baked garlic, pulpy cooked-down squash, bannock. So they would take my mother’s earrings. I’d always disliked her obsession with objects. I only wanted them to move quickly, so she wouldn’t be at home and scared.

Rainer and I sat side by side at breakfast. “How was the action?” I said.

“Before I was arrested, people came on horseback,” he said, “and the police shot the horses with water cannons.” He looked down at the bread on his plate as though he didn’t know what it was for. “I keep thinking about Osha and Cuke,” he said. “The way they smelled.”

I touched his shoulder and he leaned into my hand like a cat. “Bay said they’ll be all right,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” said Rainer. He picked up a slice of bread, looked at it, and put it down again.

“Here,” I said. I passed Rainer a jar of apricot jam, and he received it in trembling hands, and dropped it to the floor. He was usually so quick to help, but now he stared down at the glowering orange mess, and I ran to mop it up.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“That’s all right,” I said. He sat at the table holding his head in his hands. I remembered how pudgy and jovial he’d been when he arrived.

* * *