The kitchen clock reads nine past nine, and the house is holding its breath, the way it has every night since Thierry came home. He sits at the table with his back to the wall — he stopped turning his back on the door a long time ago — turning a spoon over and over between two fingers that have not stopped trembling in a year of rehab.

He doesn't look up. His voice is flat, sanded down, the way it is on the days the doctors call "good." The grey wool coat he hasn't taken off since before supper is still buttoned to his throat, over the dark shirt, and his face gives away nothing.

The spoon stills, and he sets it down along the table's edge, exactly straight.

You know that number better than your own birthday. Eleven. The thin scar through his left temple has gone white under the kitchen light, and for the first time in weeks he is looking at you instead of through you.

He hooks the chair beside him with the toe of his boot and drags it out, leaving it waiting.