Dane lowered the phone.
“No,” Elliott said. “Keep recording.”
Dane froze.
Nora released Clara so fast Clara tipped sideways. Elliott crossed the room and caught her before her temple struck the cabinet. She clutched his sleeve, shaking.
“Elliott,” she breathed.
“I’m here,” he said.
Nora pressed one hand to her chest. “You’re home.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t supposed to be back until Friday.”
The sentence hung in the room longer than she meant it to.
Elliott looked from her to Dane to the water on the floor.
“I can see that,” he said.
Nora blinked rapidly and then rearranged her face. It was a transformation he had watched many times in public, though never from this close and never with this much at stake. Her mouth softened. Her shoulders lowered. Her eyes grew bright.
“Elliott, Clara had one of her spells,” she said. “She was upset. She tried to carry a basin of water, and she slipped. Dane and I were helping her.”
Clara made a small sound.
Elliott felt her hand tighten around his wrist.
He looked down. “Aunt Clara?”
She stared at Nora.
Nora stared back.
That was when Elliott understood that fear had already been living in this house for a while. It had learned where the cups were kept. It had learned the sound of Nora’s heels in the hall. It had learned to be quiet.
He helped Clara into the kitchen and lowered her into the chair by the window. Her skin felt cold through the wet sleeve of her cardigan.
“Stay with me,” he murmured.
“I tried to call,” Clara whispered.
“My phone was off during the last leg.”
“No.” Her eyes filled. “Before. Many times.”
Nora appeared in the kitchen doorway. “She forgets things, Elliott. You know that.”
Elliott did know that Clara occasionally misplaced her reading glasses. He knew she sometimes called the upstairs room by its old name, the sewing room, even though it had become his office years ago. He also knew she remembered every birthday, every debt, every kindness, every injury.
Dane came in behind Nora, sliding his phone into his jacket pocket.
“Put the phone on the table,” Elliott said.
Dane gave a short laugh. “You don’t get to order me around in my sister’s house.”
“My house,” Elliott said.
Nora’s eyes flickered.
It was quick, but Elliott saw it.
He had spent six months negotiating contracts in countries where a blink could mean a bribe, a hesitation could mean danger, and silence often said more than speech. Nora’s face had always been beautiful to him. In that moment, it became readable.
Fear. Calculation. Resentment.
Then anger.
“You left me here to manage everything,” she said. “You do not get to come home and perform outrage because I handled a situation you refused to handle.”
“What situation?”
Nora gestured toward Clara. “This. Her. The constant hovering. The guilt. The way she looks at me every time I move a vase or change a curtain, as if I am trespassing in my own marriage.”
Clara lowered her gaze.
Elliott felt something hot move through him.
“You put her on the floor,” he said.
“She fell.”
“You told her to thank you for a room.”
Nora’s jaw tightened. “Dane was joking.”
“I was in the hallway.”
Dane shifted. The phone inside
