I had let one shut door cancel six months of open ones.

That is what an old wound does.

It waits, quietly, for the smallest confirmation, and then it overrides everything.

And yet.

And yet there was that one thing, the one small strange thing that did not fit the rest of her, that had nagged at the back of my mind for six months without my ever letting it fully form into a question: Jacqueline kept that guest bedroom door shut.

Tight.