Murdock Thackery had not sat down once all evening, and nobody in that house had asked him why.

He had come in from the yard at seven, washed his hands at the sink, and taken up the same place he takes every night: the end of the counter, his back to the window, his arms crossed. Two hours later he had not moved, and he had said eleven words in total, all of them to Peyton, and one of them had been no.

he had said, when Peyton asked whether he was going to sit down, and that had been the end of it.

He was the eldest of the five. He was the one who put a new lock on the back door the year their father left, the one who drove Rayner to the hospital the night of the accident out on the depot road, and he did not argue with anyone, because arguing is what a man does when he has not decided yet. Murdock waited. Men who wait long enough usually get told things for free.

The window behind him gave him the drive and the street. The glass front of the cupboard gave him the rest of the kitchen — which is how he saw the hall door open a full second before anyone else in the room did.

He did not turn around. He watched Rayner's eyes go to it, and Ruskin stop in the middle of a word, and then he reached for the bottle at his elbow and poured two fingers into the empty glass in front of him.

he said, without lifting his head.