She started walking back toward town, past the LIFE IS WORTH LIVING sign. What did the rest of the girls do? she wondered. Where were the articles about the girls who lived with it? If life was worth living after this, where could she find out how?

Claudia walked from noon to sundown all the next four days. Over the bridge to New Paltz and back; down to the old cemetery; through parks along the water. She brought home frozen dinners and ate a few bites. She closed every shade and turned on every lamp and checked the locks on every door and window. Her old phone was off but the new one was always with her, available to dial 911 if Ridley’s SUV came rolling up. At night she stared at the television, or the front door. Only when the gray light of a sunrise began to creep into the house did she retreat to the spare bedroom and fall into a black, dreamless sleep.

On the fifth afternoon there was a woman on the front steps when she came outside for her walk.

“Claudia?” The woman was white, fifties maybe, wearing a flowered dress and pantyhose and carrying a heavy key ring. “Are you Edie’s sister?”

It was Nathan’s mom. She’d driven by the night before and seen the lights, she said. When she called her son to ask if someone was staying at the house she found out they were frantically searching for Claudia.

“They’ll be so glad to know you’re okay!”

Claudia considered her choices. In theory, she could keep moving. She could go anywhere. But she was far too tired. Nathan’s mom left and Claudia sat waiting in her sister’s living room. Would they forgive her? They might not. Maybe what she’d done was unforgivable. But maybe they’d still take care of her.

An Uber brought her parents and her sister and her brother-in-law and her niece to the house a few hours later. Edie jumped from the car and ran toward her. No one had touched her for more than a moment since the night she still couldn’t remember, and when Edie pressed her chest into Claudia, she expected to stiffen, but her sister’s arms around her felt like nourishment. As if Edie’s body were a door closing against the draft Chad and Jeremy had left blowing cold inside. Maybe she could finally get warm.

On the drive back to Manhattan Gabe called the police in Edgartown and told them the family didn’t wish to press trespassing charges against Trevor. Claudia got on the phone with Lt. Braga.

“It was a misunderstanding,” she said. “I told him he could stay there.”

Lydia was quiet through most of the car ride but awoke screaming as they crossed the George Washington Bridge.