Priya kneeling on the gravel with a dish towel and a pair of tweezers from Nora's own bathroom, picking a sliver of glass out of the side of her foot while Nora sat on the closed lid of the recycling bin. Priya's voice, steady and professional, saying, "It's shallow. It's all shallow. You're fine. She's fine. Breathe for me."
The second-grade teachers moving through the backyard like a disaster relief team, gathering up paper plates, folding chairs, gifts, saying to the Nakamuras, "Thank you so much for coming, we're going to wrap up a little early," as if this were a normal thing to say at three in the afternoon.
Aunt Teresa standing in the middle of the lawn with her hands pressed together under her chin, saying to no one, "She's been so unhappy. She's been so unhappy, for so long," and then, catching Nora's eye, looking away.
Linda, Grant's mother, sitting very still in the lawn chair she'd carried around the side of the house, her quilt still folded over her arm, saying, "I'm so sorry, Nora. I'm so sorry," over and over, though she hadn't done anything. Then getting up and walking over to her son, who was standing alone by the hose reel, and slapping him across the face, once, hard, the sound of it smaller than the pitcher but somehow worse. Linda was sixty-eight and five foot one. Grant didn't move. Linda walked back to her car without another word and sat in it with the engine running and the air conditioning on for a long time before she drove away.
And Grant, at some point, trying to come close. "Nora. Please. Five minutes. Just let me—"
"Don't," Priya said, standing up between them with the bloody tweezers still in her hand. "Do not take another step toward her."
"This is my house."
That was what he said. Nora would remember it for the rest of her life. Not I'm sorry, not I love you, not even a lie. This is my house.
Priya looked at him for a long, flat moment. "Is it?" she said.
Grant opened his mouth and closed it.
"I'd like you to leave," Nora said. Her voice came out sounding like someone else's voice, someone calm. "Go stay somewhere. Go stay with her, I don't care. I want you out of here in ten minutes."
"Nora, it's not—it's not what you think. It's not some—it's complicated, it's been—"
"Ten minutes."