In the car Mason narrated the dog, the river, a pancake Claire had burned, the fact that Grandpa’s hip made a sound like a door. He did not narrate the kitchen table. That stayed in a deeper pocket. At home he brushed his teeth without a battle and got into bed and listened to three pages of the cardboard city. At the door, Lauren said goodnight and Mason said, “Are we all sleeping here?”
“Yes,” Derek said.
“Even you and Mom in the same house.”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Mason said, and let the day end.
Later, in the kitchen, with the suitcases still in the hall like animals that had followed them home, Lauren told him the rest without asking him to hold her. He listened. He asked two questions and no third, because a third would have been a cross-examination and the night was too late for a courtroom. When she was done she said, “I don’t know what we are now.”