Elise looked at the coral handbag. In the firelight it seemed almost alive, a small animal crouched on their vacation furniture. She thought of airports, of hotel rooms she had never seen, of perfume that was not hers on a collar. She thought of how carefully Daniel had packed three days ago in Denver, how he had zipped the duffel with a finality that had seemed, at the time, only like a man being thorough.
"Twenty minutes," she said. "If you stall, I'm opening it myself."
"Don't," Daniel said, too quickly.
Her eyebrows rose. "So there is something inside you don't want me to see cold."
"There is something inside I want to explain before you see it. That's different."
"Is it?"
He did not answer. Instead he walked to the hallway and called Toby's name in the soft father-voice that still worked magic. Elise remained by the groceries, staring at the bag, and counted her breaths the way a therapist had once taught her after her mother died — in for four, hold for four, out for six — until the counting felt like another kind of lie.
They ate pasta at the small table near the window because that was what parents did when the world cracked: they fed the child. Toby chattered about snowmen and whether bears slept in the mountains and whether the hat made him look like a spy. Daniel answered with careful cheer. Elise pushed noodles around her plate and tasted almost nothing. When Toby asked why Mommy was quiet, she said she was tired from the drive, which was partially true. The interstate from Denver had been a white tunnel of weather and taut silence even before the bag.