When she was done, she stared at the burning mask of her face. She would wear her hair down and put on her pink turtleneck, which flattered her, and that pretty pleated cream skirt. She wanted something to happen tonight. Wrapping the bath towel tight around her, she wished she had remembered her robe and listened at the bathroom door. The last couple of times she had come out after a shower, her dad had been in the hallway. The first time he just walked by her, winking. The second, he did that old trick, pointing at her chest curiously, then flicking her nose when she looked down. Hearing nothing, she hurried across the hallway to her bedroom. After drying her hair and rubbing lotion into her legs, she went to her closet. When she opened the door, she almost fell backward as her dad’s stupidly grinning face popped out from between her clothes.

“Jesus!” she screamed. “What are you doing?”

“Boo,” he said.

“What are you doing?” She had flung her hands around her body, afraid the towel might slip.

Hurt, he clenched his small features frowningly at the center of his huge face. “Can’t you take a joke?”

“Don’t you ever come in here again.”

“Well, that’s funny,” he said, stepping out of her closet. “Last I checked, name on the mortgage was mine.”

“You’re acting weird.”

“What’s wrong with you, Puggy? We always used to horse around.”

“Dad, please get out. I’ve got to get ready.”

All at once his face went very still and something, a shadow, seemed to pass beneath its surface. It brought back to her the look on his face when he had saved her from her cousin. That hadn’t been her fault, though. Götz had trapped her arms, hurting her wrists so bad that, after her dad had dragged him off, she had hardly been able to pull her nightdress back down. And yet she hadn’t made a sound. Why? Her mom, her face full of anxious sympathy, had appeared in the doorway but hesitated nervously, which had caused Nora to make an angry gesture for her to go away. Heartbreakingly, she had obeyed. Desperate for her mom, she had lain in misery, trying to understand why she hadn’t called out.

Remembering this, she couldn’t meet her dad’s eyes. A molten shame rolled down through the hollows of her body, making a solid and shapeless clot of her.

“Your face,” he said. She glanced up to see him pointing at his own nose. “It’s bleeding.”

“Daddy, please get out of my room. Please.”

He left. She slumped herself at her vanity, staring into the mirror. On her nose a bead of blood had swelled out from a stubborn zit she hadn’t been able to leave alone. She dealt with this and got dressed. As she applied her makeup, she wondered what it would be like to live in England. Even India. Somewhere—anywhere—else.