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Like she’d be standing somewhere, waiting, and I’d be the one walking away.

My mother’s voice is coming out of the guest room when I get to the top of the stairs.

“—and the thermostat’s on the wall by the closet, but it runs warm, so you’ll probably want to turn it down. Extra blankets are in the cedar chest at the foot of the bed. The bathroom’s through there. There’s shampoo and everything, but if you need anything else, you just tell me.”

I stop in the doorway.

The guest room is the size of my bedroom across the hall. It’s softer and decorated for guests, with cream walls and simple artwork. There’s a big bed with too many pillows on it. Two windows looking out over the back lawn, white now, all the way down to the trees. A vase of something dried on the dresser that my mother changes with the seasons. It looks like a hotel in here.

Tessa’s standing in the middle of it with her duffel still on her shoulder. She hasn’t put it down.

My mother sees me. She comes over and puts her hands on my shoulders from behind, the way she’s done since I was little, and turns me a little toward the hall, like she’s presenting me.

“And Rafe’s room,” she says, “is right across the hall.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Waleska,” Tessa says. “I really appreciate it.”

“Of course.” My mother lets go of my shoulders. “You’re welcome any time.”

Tessa goes still, and her eyes go to my mother’s face and stay there, like she’s waiting for the rest of the sentence. The part with the condition in it.

There isn’t one. My mom is already looking at me.

“Hungry? There’s soup. And I made the bread.”

I don’t answer her. I look at Tessa. “Hungry?”

She shakes her head.

“I’ll come down later,” I tell my mom.

She looks between us for one second, the same second she gave me at the breakfast table, and then she says, “All right,” and goes. Her footsteps go down the hall. Then the stairs.

And it’s just us.

Tessa puts her duffel down on the floor at the foot of the bed. Not on the bed. On the floor, next to the cedar chest, small and black with the logo half peeled off, like she doesn’t want to get anything on anything.

She looks around. She goes to the window, touches the curtain, then lets go. She looks at the bed with all its pillows. She looks at the dried flowers. She looks at the door to the bathroom, open, with the marble and the towels rolled up in a basket.

“It’s really nice in here,” she says.

I know what she’s doing. I know because I’ve watched her do it in a cafeteria for four years. She’s making herself small so she doesn’t take up any of it. She’s standing in the middle of a room twice the size of her dorm with her arms close to her sides, trying not to touch anything, like the room might notice she doesn’t belong in it.

I hate this room, a little, suddenly.

“There’s another room,” I say.

She turns around. “What?”

“In another part of the house.” I nod at the hall. “Do you want to see it?”

She looks at me for a second, like she’s trying to figure out if it’s a trick.

“Okay,” she says.

I take her down the hall. Past my room. Past the linen closet and my mother’s reading room, and the long window at the end that looks out over the drive. To a door at the very end of the hall that looks like a closet door. White, plain, with a brass knob that doesn’t match any of the other knobs on this floor.

I open it.