On the drive home, Sofia chattered from her car seat about a boy in class who could whistle through the gap in his teeth.
Elena answered at the right moments. Marco drove. The perfume bottle sat in Elena's purse, wrapped in a scarf. When they reached the townhouse, the evening was clear, the earlier rain forgotten by the sky if not by the soil.
That night Elena did not sleep in Sofia's room. She lay beside Marco in their bed and stared at the ceiling and said, into the dark, "I am still angry."
"I know," he said. Then, correcting himself: "I hear you."
"You should have told me."
"Yes."
"And Carmen should have called me years ago."