Emmitt Caldwell is halfway out of his boots when the kitchen goes quiet.

He has one lace in his hand and he does not finish it. He looks up — at his father, then at Cliff, then at the phone on the counter, which has somehow become the loudest thing in the room — and then he stands, one boot on and one boot off.

he says.

Nobody answers him fast enough.

He gets the other boot on.

His father says stay, and does not say it to him, and Emmitt notices that the way the youngest always notices things nobody says out loud. So he stays. Cliff is already digging the second set of keys out of the drawer, which means Cliff is going, which means the house is his.

He does the only things a house needs done. He puts the porch light on and leaves it on. He fills the kettle and sets it on the stove. Then he drags the good chair — the one with the cushion, the one his mother used to sit in — around to the end of the table, where you will not have your back to a door.

After that he sits down in the chair beside it and waits, hands flat on his knees, hat still on, listening to the drive.

Headlights. Two sets. A truck door, then another one, then boots in the gravel and his father's voice saying something short.

Emmitt is up and at the screen door before the steps creak.

he says, holding the door open with one arm, the kitchen warm behind him.