“But I’m not coming home,” Suzy said gently. She came all the way down to the last step, which put her on a level with McManus, and she met his eyes with a frail, compassionate dignity. She said, “Take care of yourself, Dave. I’ll be all right.” Abruptly she ducked her head, kissed McManus on the cheek, and started past him toward the kitchen. “Cleaning,” she said, “Floors.”

Later Farrell thought that she might have gotten away with it, except for the kiss. McManus blinked after her and seemed to slump into himself, rubbing his jaw and mumbling, actually beginning to turn away. Then his hand brushed the place where Suzy had kissed him, and without a word, he turned and swung the gun up at arm’s length, pointing it at her back.

Farrell shouted, and Suzy looked back and cried out, “Mother, help me!” The shot sounded like a baseball bat slamming down on the living room floor. Farrell went over the coffee table, but McManus was down before he reached him, clutching his leg and wailing in a kind of terrible gargle. The room smelled of badly burned toast. Suzy started toward her husband, almost stepping on the pistol as she did so, and then halted, as frozen as a deer in headlights, looking past Farrell. Sia was on the stair.

She was wearing a long, flowered dress that hung on her like a tablecloth, and she carried a red plastic comb in her right hand. The air tightened on Farrell as he stared at her, trapping him as if in thrashed, sweated bedsheets. Her face was without expression, her voice small and colorless when she said to McManus, “Stand up. Stand up on your feet.” Her own feet were bare, wide, and quite clearly as flat as bread boards.

“He can’t.” Suzy protested. “He’s hurt himself, he needs a doctor.” She knelt beside the gasping, whimpering McManus, trying to keep his hands from the wound. The small distant voice said, “Stand up,” and Farrell felt the two words grind together like millstones. McManus stopped crying.