Then the softness around the eyes.

Then the small perpetual half-smile she wore the way other people wear a watch.

What was underneath was not a monster and that was somehow much worse — it was just a bored, irritated woman in her own house, looking at two children on a rug the way you look at a stain.

Chadworth leaned forward until his forehead was almost against the desk edge.

On the rug, Lorelai was sitting cross-legged with a book open on her knees, reading out loud, slowly.