A girl is curled in sleep on the floor, long hair covering her face, her dark limbs loose. Melissa is shocked to stillness. Her thoughts skate to another girl, a younger child—Sorrel curled in an attic cupboard or underground. This girl’s arms are thin, she has a sparkling bangle around her wrist, her hair is tangled. Someone’s daughter. She might be a friend of Izzy’s or Lina’s, given temporary shelter. Melissa puts the knife on the shelf, kneels beside the sleeping form, and gently touches her hand. The girl jolts awake with a gasp, lifts her head, and puts an arm across her stomach. Dark eyes scan hers, Lina’s eyes. Melissa’s bewilderment changes, deepens. Without the hijab, the thick makeup, and her disguising robes, Lina is a teenager, staring up in terror, her cheeks streaked with tears.

“Lina?”

Shame and fear struggle in those dark eyes. Melissa’s thoughts fly to Izzy sleeping peacefully, unaware of what is happening at home. Safe. She smiles at Lina as reassuringly as she can.

“Let’s get you up.” She puts an arm around Lina and lifts her to her feet, bringing her into the kitchen. She sees a bruise on her temple, another on her arm, and something else, just as chilling, more perhaps. Lina is cupping her abdomen, but clearly outlined in her thin slip beneath the protective arm, the unmistakable swelling of a pregnancy that has only just begun to show. Melissa might have missed it if Lina wasn’t so slim. Melissa’s mind quietens as though the noise of years has faded away. Things do matter after all. She does care. She picks up the blanket from the sofa and wraps it around Lina as carefully as if she were another daughter.

“Sit with me, Lina, please.” She touches the sofa beside her and Lina lowers herself gradually.

“What happened?” She makes her voice as gentle as she can but Lina seems frozen with fear.

“Did someone hurt you?”

The dark eyes lower, she nods.

“Who was it? Can you tell me?”

Lina lifts her head and stares at her; in the shame of that gaze, Melissa understands. The truth had been waiting for her all along; she had only to look, she had only to listen. She puts her hand on top of Lina’s. The truth was hiding in sounds: the office door closing quietly each Saturday on pay day, the weeping in the pantry when the boyfriend was blamed; it had been in the way Lina’s gaze never met her own; it’s here, in the bracelet on Lina’s arm. A sorry present from Paul, like the ones she used to get. There are moments in life, not many, when you know with clarity that something has started or come to its end. At this moment she knows her marriage is over, that she will leave Paul, taking Izzy, and that her responsibility for Lina has begun.

“We need to leave. It’s too dangerous for you here.” She can take Lina to safety and come back for Izzy within hours. Lina looks at her; her eyes are unfathomable.