Naomi eventually arranged a supervised property retrieval in the third week: a sheriff’s deputy stood in the living room for eleven minutes while I filled two suitcases as fast as I could, and Beatrice stood in the kitchen doorway and watched me do it and said nothing at all, and I have never in my life been so aware of a person’s eyes.

I forgot the rabbit’s blanket.

I got the rabbit.

I forgot the blanket, and she asked about it every night for three weeks, and I never went back for it, and I bought a similar one that was not the same and she knew.

Work was the strange part.

I told my manager on day nine, in a phone call, badly, and I had rehearsed a version in which I was extremely brief and professional and I got about four sentences into it before I could not continue.