It wasn’t the heavy, tense quiet of hiding secrets or pretending to be fine.

It was just the ordinary sound of a home at six o’clock.

By seven o’clock, the dinner plates were washed and stacked in the wooden drying rack.

Ethan carried June up the narrow staircase to the nursery.

I followed behind with the small brown bottle of oral antibiotic and the plastic measuring syringe.

He laid June on the padded changing table and unbuttoned her footed cotton sleeper.

He didn’t look around for instructions.