The cabin was spotless. No broken glass, no lanterns fallen on the floor, no overturned chairs. No sign of what had happened here.

And it smelled good, of roasting meat. Almost exactly when Leni noticed the scent, Dad came out of the bedroom.

Mama gasped.

Leni felt nothing, certainly not surprise.

He stood there facing them, his long hair pulled back into a squiggly ponytail. His face was bruised, a little misshapen. One eye was black. He was wearing the same clothes Leni had last seen him in and there were dried flecks of blood on his neck.

“Y-you’re out,” Mama said.

“You didn’t press charges,” he answered.

Mama’s face turned red. She didn’t look at Leni.

He moved toward Mama. “Because you love me and you know I didn’t mean any of it. You know how sorry I am. It won’t happen again,” he promised as he reached for her.

Leni didn’t know if it was fear or love or habit or a poisonous combination of all three, but Mama reached out, too. Her pale fingers threaded through his dirty ones, curled in to take hold.

He pulled her into his arms, held on to her so tightly he must have thought they’d be swept away, one without the other. When they finally pulled apart, he turned to Leni. “I heard he’s going to die. I’m sorry.”

Sorry.

Leni felt something then, a seismic shift in her thinking; like spring breakup, a changing of the landscape, a breaking away that was violent, immediate. She wasn’t afraid of this man anymore. Or if she was, the fear was submerged too deeply to register. All she felt was hatred.

“Leni?” he said, frowning. “I’m sorry. Say something.”

She saw what her silence did to him, how it shredded his confidence, and she decided right then: she would never speak to her father again. Let Mama slink back, let her twine herself back into this toxic knot that was their family. Leni would stay only as long as she had to. As soon as Matthew was better she would leave. If this was the life Mama chose for herself, so be it. Leni was going to leave.

As soon as Matthew was better.

“Leni?” Mama said, her voice uncertain. She, too, was confused and frightened by this change in Leni. She sensed an upheaval in emotion that could move the continents of their past.

Leni walked past them both, climbed awkwardly up the loft ladder, and crawled into bed.

*   *   *

Dear Matthew,