Elias hesitated, glancing between them, already sensing weather he could not name. Then he padded away into the family room in his dinosaur T-shirt and socks, suddenly smaller without the cardigan, and the laundry room held only the two of them and the things he had worn.
Marcus stood. He set the cardigan and the necklace and the pouch on the dryer as if they were evidence he regretted collecting. The beige wool collapsed into a soft heap. The lipstick tube slid half out of the pouch and stopped.
Aaliyah looked at the lipstick. It was a shade she had not seen in fifteen years and had never forgotten: a deep berry that her mother used to call her "church mouth," applied in the rearview mirror of a dented Civic before Sundays that sometimes happened and sometimes did not.
"Marcus," she said.
He rubbed a hand over his beard. Outside, the leaf blower started again, distant and useless.
"It's not what you think."
"You don't know what I think."