My mother had never worn that look in her life, not through my father’s death, not through the hardest years I could remember.

She was wearing it now, at her own dinner table, in her own home, and the man who had put it there was sitting across from her cutting his food.

And I began, quietly, to pay attention the way I had been trained to pay attention, because I understood now that I was not at a dinner.

I was at the scene of something.

Chapter 6 — In the Dim Kitchen