I eased the rubber gloves off her hands, gently, and I saw what a year had done to them: skin cracked and inflamed and raw, nails damaged, and the dressed wounds along her forearms that a doctor would soon document by date, in the flat language of a medical report, each one a separate day I had been somewhere else believing my home was at peace.

Chapter 11 — This Party Is Over

I turned and faced the living room.

“This party is over,” I said, my voice low.

“Every one of you has five minutes to get out of my home.”

Nobody moved.