The truth is, unstructured time makes me itchy. Some days nothing exciting at all happens at the station, and I’m left scratching my nose at Teddy, flipping through newspapers, or playing Scrabble on my computer, but there are always reports piling up, a phone ringing, and procedural meetings. The thought of puttering around the house, sipping coffee, and gazing out the front window waiting for my phone to ring makes me want to rip what’s left of my hair out.

My father’s still staring at me, and I slump in my chair like I must have done a million times since I was twelve.

“It’s nothing strenuous,” I say to my father’s forehead. “Paperwork, really. Just a few loose ends to wrap up and making sure Teddy and Oliver didn’t mess up everything while I was gone.”

I expect him to smile. My father, despite his distaste for my job, likes Teddy. I think he took one look at his calm face and thought that at least if I was in this line of work, Teddy would be by my side. But he only grimaces. My mother runs the tap in the kitchen.

With Verena gone and the dishes cleaned, we have nothing left to say to one another. I climb the stairs to my childhood bedroom and listen to my parents argue in hushed voices in the dining room below.

Hours later, I awake in a cold sweat with the sensation I might have been yelling in my sleep. The dream is faint and clings to me like a spider’s thread, an almost invisible assailant in the night. I close my eyes, but there’s only blackness. And not the dark lids that shutter my pupils, but an inky, unnatural shadow consumes me. And then, a whisper, a snap, and I explode in flames.

“Marlitt.” My father’s voice, a question written in it, behind the bedroom door. “Everything all right?”

“I’m fine, Dad,” I murmur, my voice gravelly with sleep.

The door opens a crack and he shuffles in, still dressed in his striped polo and slacks.

“You’re up?” I ask.

“Just studying a little Athens history. Did you know Athens Regional started as a facility in a private home? There were only twelve beds.” He shakes his head in wonder. “And Ben Epps designed an airplane four years after the Wright brothers flew theirs at Kitty Hawk.”

He sits in the coral armchair angled in the corner and props his feet on my bed as he talks.

“I’m fine, Dad, really,” I say distantly.