He had learned, somewhere in his hard life, that there are moments a person does not need fixing or filling, only company.

He gave her that.

The three of them sat in the quiet restricted room as the afternoon light moved across the floor, and for the first time in eight months, Adele was not alone.

She let herself feel, for a while, the full strange doubleness of the day.

It was the worst afternoon of her life and also, somehow, one of the best, and the two facts sat side by side in her chest without cancelling each other out.

On the one hand, her parents had come to her hospital bed and pronounced her son worthless and tried to rob her while she bled.