"I need to not be in a room with you for a little while," he said finally. "I'm not leaving. I'm not going anywhere. I just need—" He made a vague gesture at the air. "I'll be in the basement."
"Okay," Natalie said.
He went down. She heard the television come on, low, a game of some kind, the far-off sound of a crowd. She stood alone in the kitchen in her emerald blouse and cream trousers, the clothes she had chosen so carefully for a photograph she would now never see, and after a while she took off her shoes and climbed the stairs in her stocking feet and stood outside Emma's door.
"Emma?" She knocked softly. "Can I come in?"
Nothing. Then: "It's open."
Emma was sitting on her bed with her knees pulled up under the cream dress, which she had not taken off. The room was lit only by the string of paper lanterns over her desk. On the wall were a poster of the periodic table, a corkboard of concert ticket stubs and friendship bracelets, a framed photo of Emma and Adam on a chairlift at Keystone, both of them in enormous goggles. The cello case stood in the corner like a patient guest.