“It’s not common. Sometimes it can happen after a blow to the head.”

“Is that what happened to Fiona?”

He spreads his hands expressively as if to say, Who knows? “Nobody is sure. She remembers blows to the head, more than one in fact, but she doesn’t know when they happened, or even if they’re significant. I mean, if you were anything like me, I bet you bumped your head a ton in childhood . . . She could have been born like this, and it just wasn’t obvious until the age when you’re supposed to be a bit more responsible.”

Dyschronometria. Something to do with not having a grip on time. “How does it impact Callum?”

“Not as much as you might think. He has to be more organized than you’d expect in a kid that age, but she has calendar reminders for just about everything in her phone. Between the two of them, and her dad, not much slips through the cracks.”

“They live with her dad?” Glen McCue. Our nearest neighbors.

He nods. “It’s a good setup. She gets a bit of help with childcare.”

“And Jamie?”

“Yeah, he lives there too.” His tone is decidedly neutral. Despite the banter I’ve heard between them, I wonder how well Ben and Jamie get on. And I wonder if Ben knows about Fiona’s obsession with the Manse—it doesn’t seem my place to tell him, especially if Fiona keeps away from now on. If I thought she was responsible for the missing bin bag, then I wouldn’t have such scruples, but she was barely able to stand at the end of that evening, let alone break into a house—she can’t be responsible for anything more than the ashtrays full of cigarette butts. And in any case, I can’t imagine Ben would take kindly to me saying unflattering things about one of his closest friends. Still, I wonder if Fiona remembers my warning.

The silence stretches out between us as Ben finishes his biscuit. I drop my eyes to my mug, to my fingers wrapped around it. I’m suddenly very conscious of where my gaze alights, of where it is seen to alight. There’s nothing exceptionally flirtatious in Ben’s manner, no change to his usual laid-back demeanor, but still, I know there’s something there, hovering. I know that if I were to reach for it, if I were to deliberately hold his gaze, the very air between us would change, each atom suddenly charged, no longer floating aimlessly but instantly imbued with the sole purpose of creating a conduit between us. We are bound within a cocoon. I am too aware of him, and he of me, and the Manse is aware of us both.