But this morning, the memory of what she’d seen in that studio portrait haunted her. And not because she was seeing it for the first time, but because it reinforced what she had seen before. Years ago, when she was a child, and then again, years later, since coming to this house. Why was this Penn Station rat-wolf eating its way into her brain? Was it something intrinsic to this house? Did it have something to do with the trains? And would packing this representation she’d made of it be like taking home a memento of a nightmare?

She concluded, finally, that leaving it behind wouldn’t erase it from her memory. She’d made it with her own hands, for Christ’s sake. It was a part of her. To toss it was to admit her fear of it. Well, fuck that.

She would pack it.

Despite wanting to leave early, she wasn’t going to wake Charlie at this hour. His door was closed, and she would let him sleep. Stealthily, she brought her two suitcases down the stairs and set them inside the front door. In the kitchen she found some bags that would hold everything she wanted to bring home from the studio.

But first she decided to prepare some food for the trip. She took the bag of bagels Finnegan had brought. She was thinking he’d brought an entire dozen, but there were only six. Still, plenty for the trip home. She put just butter on three, and cream cheese on the other three. She would have put peanut butter on at least one of them, but she couldn’t find it in the cupboard. She put the bagels into the small cooler Finnegan had brought, along with an ice pack, mainly for the ones slathered with cream cheese. There were several different bottled beverages in the fridge that she’d add just before they left.

Back to the studio she went with several bags. She packed up everything she wanted to keep, and took extra care with the figure, wrapping it in some paper before placing it in a Bloomingdale’s canvas tote with the words medium brown bag printed on the side.

She cast her eye on the train layout on the floor.

“Goodbye,” she said.

And she could have sworn, for a split second, the headlight on the engine flicked on and off. She stared at it for several seconds, willing it to flash once more, but it did not. She was leaving everything there as it was. She was not going downstairs for that Tide box and packing it up. Let Candace do it.

She went back down to the front hall, grabbed her car remote, went outside, and hit the button to open the tailgate. She put everything in. The only stuff left to pack was what was in Charlie’s room.