She turned her back and pulled her shirt up to her shoulder blade and held it there without being asked twice.

Three marks ran down her spine, blue in the middle, yellow at the edges, spaced like the rungs of a small ladder.

“How long have those been there?”

“Since the snow.”

She let the shirt drop and smoothed it flat.

Then she knelt on the rug, slow and practiced, and pointed under the seat.

I got down on one knee.

Beef and rosemary still hung in the room, and under that a warmer smell, like a plastic lid left too close to a lamp.