“I won’t stay,” he said. “I know the rules.”

“You can stay,” said Claire. “For a bit.”

He knelt, slowly, because his knees were not what they had been, and opened the bag. Inside was a wooden train, painted red. Lily stared at it with the utter focus of a toddler who has found treasure.

“I didn’t buy it,” Arthur said. “I made it. Badly. I took up woodworking.”

Claire smiled. “It’s perfect.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “I gave Daniel’s share of the estate to a children’s hospital,” he said. “I’m keeping a small trust for Lily’s education, which you may refuse.”

“I’ll think about it,” Claire said, and meant it.

Arthur nodded, relieved. “Daniel wrote to me,” he added. “From the hardware store. He says he’s been going to counseling. He says he’s learning to fix things.”

“I know,” said Claire. “He sends a report every month. Sometimes I read them.”

“And Margaret?”

Claire looked at the window, at the street outside gleaming with fresh rain.

“I hope she finds a way to be sorry,” she said. “But that’s not my work anymore.”

That evening, after Nora and Arthur had gone, Claire sat on the floor of her studio with Lily asleep in her lap, the red train still clutched in one fist. Light from the streetlamps slid across the blank walls.

She thought of the porch. The cold. The flash of the slap.

The girl who had stood there, silent and small, had needed a reason to fight.

Now there was a name over the door, and a child in her arms, and nothing left to hide.

Claire kissed her daughter’s forehead.

“We’re home,” she whispered.

THE END

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