“Buildings don’t get angry.

And children don’t cause grown-ups to make bad decisions.”

He relaxed against his pillow.

It was the first time he had fallen asleep without asking whether he might wake up feeling worse.

PART 8

Three days after we left the mansion, Eleanor came to the hospital carrying a battered cookbook wrapped in a grocery bag.

She was dressed in a gray sweater rather than her housekeeper’s uniform, and she looked older outside the familiar walls of the estate.

“I found it,” she said.