She nodded once. She did not forgive him. Forgiveness would have required a tenderness she was rationing. She picked at a loose thread on the cuff of the hoodie.
"Is Owen okay?"
"He put the money on the table. He wasn't showing off. He looked sick about it."
"Don't yell at him."
"I'm not going to yell at him."
"Grandpa will say I made Owen do it. I didn't. If you need to know that."
"I know."
They sat with the heating vent breathing between them. From Owen's room came the sound of a toy car being rolled, not played with so much as repeated, back and forth, a small engine of nerves. Lena glanced at the wall.
"Tell him he can come in if he wants," she said. "I'm not mad at him. I'm not doing a whole talk. I just don't want him sitting in there thinking he stole my afternoon by existing."
"I'll tell him," Marcus said.
At the door he stopped. "The pieces are on the kitchen table under the salt shaker. I didn't throw them away. If you want them in the trash, I'll take them. If you want them taped, your mother is better at tape than I am. Nobody's framing them. I just didn't want them on the floor."
Lena's throat moved. "Leave them."
"Okay."
He closed the door to the width she liked, not shut, not open, a gap the width of a hand.
***