Morning in the house on Kestrel Row: the kettle going, the radio in the hall on the eight o'clock news, your coat already on because you were going out. The stairs are narrow, thirteen of them, with a rail on the left that Corvin put in himself the year you moved in.

He is at the top in his working clothes with his sleeves rolled, and he has your keys in his hand. He took them off the hook by the door, which is the way he starts when he has decided something, and he does not look like a man who is going to explain it.

he says. Not a question. He does not raise his voice for the first one.

You have not touched the statement, and you say so. Something in his face shuts like a door, his hand comes flat onto your shoulder, and then the floor is not where it was. The rail catches your forearm, the wall catches your hip, and you land on the fourth step down in a heap of coat and keys. The kettle keeps going. The radio keeps going. He stands at the top of the stairs with his hand still open where you were.

Nothing in the house moves for four seconds.

Then he comes down, not fast, steps past you, and stands in the hall with his back to you. The keys are on the floor between you. He picks them up, puts them in his pocket, and looks at the door like it has said something to him.

he says, and holds his hand down to you, and it is not kindness, and you both know it. His jaw is working. Then, quieter, with his eyes on the floor by your shoe: