“I’ll be sitting at your desk at eight tomorrow morning,” I said.

“Good,” Bell said.

“Now let’s pack your daughter’s things so she can sleep next door tonight.”

We went back into the living room, where Evelyn was kneeling on the rug next to Lily’s canvas overnight bag.

Lily sat on the floor hugging her teddy bear to her chest, her eyes blinking slowly in the dim lamplight.

Evelyn folded a clean blue shirt and two pairs of cotton socks and laid them neatly in the main compartment of the bag.

I bent down, picked up Lily’s little pink plastic toothbrush from the side table, and tucked it into the outer zipper pocket.