Through her one open eye she saw Shawn reach out and put a roll of toilet paper on the counter and walk out of the bathroom. She blotted at her face with the tissue, trying to fix her mistake, but later, in her car, she checked in the mirror and saw the faint black streaks across her cheeks, lingering evidence of her failure.

—

As they are finishing breakfast, Shawn calls Katriina from the restaurant. “Where are you?” he asks. “I’m stuck at work for a bit.”

“Victor Street.” With her free hand she starts stacking dirty dishes on the table. The three girls are upstairs watching television and the three boys are in the backyard, and Nicki is sitting at the kitchen table, reading a magazine. All while Katriina cleans up. “Just having breakfast with Nicki and the kids,” she says brightly.

“Wait, Nicki’s there?” Shawn asks. “She was supposed to pick up Finn at the airport forty-five minutes ago!”

Katriina takes a breath. “Nicki,” she says, pulling the phone away from her ear. “Shawn says you were supposed to pick Finn up at the airport.”

Nicki stabs at a piece of pancake with her fork, then sticks it in her mouth. “No I wasn’t,” she says through her chewing. “Shawn was going to do it.”

“Nicki says you were supposed to do it.”

“How was I supposed to do it?” Shawn yells. “I’m at fucking work!”

Katriina pulls the phone away from her ear again. “Shawn says he’s at work.”

“I’m at work, too.”

“You’re eating pancakes.”

Nicki holds up a magazine, the front of which reads Hair Today. “It’s research,” she says, shrugging.

With the phone pinned between her neck and her shoulder, Katriina snatches up the stack of plates and deposits them in the sink a little too forcefully, wondering how she keeps getting caught up in the dramas of a family that isn’t even hers. She thinks about her own family, about Hanna and their parents and all their small, easily contained lives. If there are problems, they keep them to themselves. There is none of this leaving people at airports or screaming obscenities into cell phones. No riding barrels over waterfalls.

“She’s not going,” Katriina says into the phone. “Sorry.”

Shawn sighs. “Can you go, then?”

“Me?” Katriina says, raising her brows at Nicki. Nicki rolls her eyes. “I…I’ll have to see if my car’s still here…Hamish might have borrowed it…”

As she steps to the window, pretending to check for her car that she knows is there, she sees a cab pull up into the driveway and Finn get out. “Oh, she’s here,” Katriina says.

“Lucky you,” Shawn says.