I check the time on my phone: 1:35 A.M. Abruptly I fling back the covers. There’s no use denying it: I can’t sleep. It’s too strange, being here, waiting for memories to strike at any moment. All day long I’ve been simultaneously avoiding thinking about the past and straining to find something familiar; no wonder I’m too overtired to drift off. Even while trying to sleep, part of my mind has been mulling over whether this could have been my bedroom before. I grab my dressing gown and pull it on as I leave the room. Carrie has left the door to the master bedroom open, but I know she’s in bed—I can just make out her rhythmic breathing. I stand in the hallway and listen to those peaceful breaths with a feeling of relief: that she’s comfortable enough to sleep, that with her asleep, I don’t feel her hovering around the edge of my consciousness. My eyes are adjusting to the dark and I realize she’s left the curtains open as well as the door. There’s enough moonlight that I have no need of the hallway light, even if I could remember where the switch is. The stairs are lit by the same moonlight, streaming in through the fanlight above the front door. In this silvery half-light, the house is different again, neither bright and breezy nor uneasily dark, but something . . . other. Something patient, comfortable in its own skin, authentic. I can sense that the well-worn wood of the stairs beneath my bare feet could tell many a tale, some of them presumably relevant to me. When I get to the ground floor, I don’t grope for the light switch—I like this version; I don’t want to chase it away with the glare of artificial light. Instead I wander slowly through the ground floor, trailing my fingers along the walls where the moonlight is painting them gray.