“I’m here for Julia,” I say. I came over here planning to unleash all my anger, to drag him back kicking and screaming to see his dying mother. But he has shadows under his eyes and I wonder if he sleeps, if he’s been lying awake remembering the last time he was here, if he lies awake thinking of all the years he never got to spend with his mother and it twists me up inside because I know that pain. God, it almost killed me when my own mother died, all the grief for everything we weren’t going to be able to do together. She would never meet my boyfriends and give me advice, never watch me get married, never get to hold any children I might have in the future. The pain of it is still there, muted but sharp enough to hurt.

Sean is looking at me and I think he must be able to see it all on my face. My heart races and a long-ago voice whispers in my head. He’s dangerous. Who said that? Was it Bella? Or Lena or Max? I don’t remember. It was the night we all got drunk and things got hazy, a few days before Bella died.

Run, Jack’s voice whispers in my memory.

Run.

“You’d better come in,” Sean says, stepping aside to let me in the house. The hallway behind him is dark and I can see a coating of dust and cobwebs over everything. As Sean steps aside, I’m hit with a tang of mildew and rot and dust that coats my throat and makes me cough. The house smells rotten and I take an involuntary step back.

“No thanks,” I say. “I don’t want to come in.”

As I take another step away, Sean stands there, looking lost. I notice a rolled-up sleeping bag propped against the wall.

“Are you staying here?” I ask.

He nods. “I figured it was easier than going back and forth from a B and B in the village.”

“But…” I look beyond him at the dust and the decay. “You can’t stay here—there’s no light, no heating. For God’s sake”—it’s out of my mouth before I’ve thought it through—“come and stay with us.”

“It’s not like you to be so concerned for my welfare. From what I remember, you used to be all about getting me out of your house, not into it.”

“And from what I remember, you used to be Mr. Hostile, all snotty arrogance and scowls.”

He smiles, a big warm smile. “Ugh—yeah. The scowly teenage years. What little shits we were.”