“Happier?” Laura repeated. “She’s a needy child, Barrett, not family. Why should she make me happier? Now please go change for dinner—you look like a deckhand.”

They left the room and I sat in a ball on the floor, listening to the silence and trying to quell the ache in my heart. Laura, who had been my friend, now seemed like a stranger to me. Even John’s kind impulse to take me in had been motivated by convenience. And now that Barrett was home, their actual child, I felt my displacement as harshly as if they’d moved my belongings to the garden shed.

I decided to count to a hundred before moving, just in case, and I rested my head on my knees and closed my eyes. But just as I reached seventy, disaster struck.

“Margot? Is that you?”

John stood in the doorway, looking down at me. I guess I hadn’t realized how tall he was, that he would easily see me tucked around the corner of the green chairs.

“Oh,” I said, looking up. “Yes. I just came down to get a book.”

Blindly, I reached for the first book I could find—which happened to be six inches from my feet, a leftover from the stack I’d knocked to the floor.

John stared as if he didn’t believe me, and I could see in the surprised wrinkle of his forehead and the embarrassed pink of his cheeks that he was wondering how long I’d been there and what I had heard.

“Can I escort you in to dinner?” he asked.

I got to my feet and held the book in front of me like a shield. “No, thank you,” I said. “Actually, I feel kind of sick. I came down to excuse myself and get a book. If you don’t think Laura will mind, I’ll skip dinner and go to bed.”

He glanced over at the door to my left, mentally calculating its soundproofing capacity. “Of course she won’t mind,” he said at last. “If you like, we can send something up for you.”

“No,” I said. “I’m really not hungry.”

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” he said, too kindly. “Feel better.”

He continued down the hall, and I rushed toward the stairs, desperate to avoid encountering anyone else.

I CLOSED MY bedroom door, dropped the random book on the pile on my nightstand without looking at it, and changed into a pair of pajamas. Then I crawled into bed and covered my face with the blanket, breathing in the hot, stuffy air like it was my punishment for existing.