I didn’t wake up one morning suddenly free from every habit I’d developed in the Kensington house.

Sometimes I still checked the locks twice.

Sometimes an unexpected noise woke me.

Sometimes I looked at my phone when it rang, expecting Douglas’s name.

But the incidents became less frequent.

And when they happened, I learned to distinguish a real problem from a familiar fear.

A car passing outside wasn’t Aaron.

A door moving in its frame wasn’t someone entering my room.