They sit in the car in silence. Kate is too embarrassed to speak because of what she’s done and because she no longer has the ability to explain why she’s done it. The girl is visibly shaken. “I’m driving,” she says, opening the side door and stepping out of the car. On the left-hand side of the road, Lake Superior laps up against the land, sparkling like glitter beneath that same blinding sun. Had Kate’s hand jerked to the left instead of the right, they would be underwater by now.

TWENTY-ONE

Katriina’s phone rings.

It seems almost impossible that here, on her magic floating couch in the middle of an empty living room in the middle of an empty house, there is even such a thing as a phone. She has been lying here for hours, long enough for the blood to have dried on her legs and the initial exhilaration of the cutting to have faded into a dull, nauseating ache. Long enough for the regular sounds the house makes to transform into the voices of ghosts. At some point she must have passed out, sleeping fitfully, the rough corduroy chafing against her cheek, as she dreamed of her skin flaking off, peeling back in long, translucent sheets like an old sunburn, her entire body being stripped away layer by layer until she was nothing but a pile of skin on the ground.

She fumbles around on the couch, which is her whole world now, her up and her down, her heaven and her hell. Her black work pants are balled up at the other end of the couch by her feet; she can feel the box cutter digging into her back, an uncomfortable distraction as she tries to locate the source of the ringing. She finally finds the phone squished between two of the cushions, the sound vibrating up through the layers of material, demanding her attention like one of her children. A momentary panic as she remembers Tommy and Petey. Where are her boys? Her parents – they are with her parents. Relieved, she looks down at the screen of her phone, still ringing in her hand. Well, of course. She puts it on speakerphone and rests it on her chest. “Hello?”

“Katriina,” Shawn says. “I need you.”

She almost laughs. “No, you don’t,” she says, stretching her arms over her head and arching her back like a cat. Below her, her legs feel heavy, and she lets them rest there. She is lightheaded, almost giddy. Sparkles dance in front of her eyes. “You don’t need me at all.”

This was clearly not the response Shawn was expecting. “Are you drunk?” he asks.

She does feel drunk, likely due to blood loss. Now she wishes she was. “Maybe,” she says. “Are you the only one who’s allowed to get drunk to forget his problems?”

“Katriina, Mom’s missing.”