“Okay. We’ll pick it up again tomorrow.” Zadie closed the book and sat it on Finn’s nightstand next to her fuzzy alarm clock.

“Hey, Zadie?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think Mom is happy?”

The remark would have caught Zadie off guard if she hadn’t also been wondering this herself. Their mom hadn’t been smiling much lately, and when she did, it looked like wallpaper peeling at the edges. “Why? Do you think she’s not?”

Finn paused as if reconsidering. “Not unhappy, just … lonely, maybe. I dunno…”

“She’s not lonely,” Zadie said in a tone she hoped was reassuring. “She’s got us.”

“But what about the rest of her family?”

Nora never talked about her parents. Zadie didn’t even know if she had siblings or not. Their mother’s past was kept behind a locked door, and no matter how hard Zadie squinted, she had never been able to see anything but the vaguest of shadows through the keyhole. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Yeah…” The petals of Finn’s eyelids closed. “You’re probably right.”

Zadie waited until she felt her sister’s breath nestle into a slow, hibernating rhythm before carefully climbing off the bed and slipping into the hallway.

The lights were on in the living room at the end of the hall. Her mom was probably watching Law & Order like she usually did after Finn went to bed. Maybe if Zadie asked nicely, she could convince her to let her watch MTV for an hour. She turned the corner to find the TV on, but the room empty.

“Mom?” Zadie said. No answer. She made a beeline for the remote and was about to change the channel when she felt a chill on her bare leg. The windows were all closed, but somehow there was a draft. Zadie set down the remote and followed the current of cool air from the living room through the kitchen and into the mudroom, which was connected to the screened-in porch. The doors to the porch and the yard were both wide open, their unoiled hinges squeaking in the wind.