I cannot imagine what that frozen moment held for the two of them, looking at each other across the stairs and the years.

For Silas it was the fear he had named in the car arriving in the flesh — the possibility that she would not know him, would not want him, would turn away.

For Daisy it must have been stranger still: she had been so small when they were separated that her memories of him would be more feeling than fact, a warmth with a shape she could not quite name, and here that warmth was suddenly made solid and grown and standing in her living room, and she did the only thing a child can do when the feeling is too big, which was to run from it.

Then, without a word, Daisy turned and ran back down the hallway, out of sight.