The coffee filters were on the top shelf, but Kayla kept asking Andrew to reach them whenever she crossed our kitchen in a towel. She called it a test, even after I told her to stop. On Sunday, Andrew set down his coffee, unlocked his phone, and showed her why he’d stopped leaving the room that day.

Then she marched upstairs.

A door shut.

Andrew took a sip of coffee.

I looked at him.

“Not one word.”

“Understood.”

***

Twenty minutes later, Kayla came downstairs in jeans and a sweatshirt.

She had also found the ugliest old robe in our linen closet and thrown it over one arm.

She dropped it onto a chair as she passed.

“Happy?”

I looked at it.

The room for rent belonged to a woman named Renee.

She was about Kayla’s age and worked from home three days a week.

The house was small but clean.

Kayla inspected the bedroom twice.