After dinner Daniel set Toby up on the sectional with a cartoon about talking animals and a plaid blanket pulled to his chin. The fire painted orange geometry on the boy's face. Elise wiped the counters with a sponge that squeaked. Daniel poured two glasses of water — not wine; wine would look like persuasion — and nodded toward the bedroom at the back of the cabin.
She followed him. The coral handbag remained on the coffee table where Toby had left it, a bright accusation in a room designed for comfort.
The bedroom smelled faintly of cedar and the lavender detergent Elise used at home. Daniel closed the door most of the way, leaving a gap so they could hear if Toby called. He sat on the edge of the bed. Elise remained standing, arms crossed over the cream sweater, green eyes fixed on him as if he were a trail that had forked without warning.
"Start," she said.
Daniel looked at his hands. "The bag belonged to Natalie."
For a moment Elise's face went blank, then opened into something between relief and fresh pain. Natalie. His sister. Dead eight months. The name still arrived in rooms like a draft.
"Natalie," Elise repeated. "Your sister Natalie. Who died. Whose things we sorted in March. Whose apartment we emptied with your parents. That Natalie."
"Yes."