"Where are you?" Elena asked.
"The sober house. West Chester. I can take a rideshare. I can be there in an hour if the rain—"
"No," Elena said. "Not here. Not with Sofia asleep upstairs. Meet me tomorrow. The diner on Route 30. The one with the bad coffee and the booths that stick. Eleven o'clock. Alone."
"Okay," Carmen whispered. "Okay. Lena—thank you."
Elena hung up without answering the thanks. She returned Marco's phone to the family room and set it on the laptop as if returning a borrowed tool.
"I am sleeping in Sofia's room tonight," she said. "Not because I think you are dangerous. Because I cannot lie beside a secret that large and pretend my body knows how to rest."
Marco nodded. He looked as if he wanted to say more and wisely did not. Elena climbed the stairs. She lay on the narrow edge of Sofia's bed, listening to her daughter's breathing, smelling soap on small wrists where perfume had been, and watching the rain make shadows on the ceiling until the shadows became something like sleep.