He leans in the doorway, shirt dark with sweat, hair matted. An earbud is plugged into one ear.

“What’s that?”

“Did you hear that scream at the Russells’?” I repeat. I heard him return just now, barely thirty minutes after Jane appeared on the stoop. In the meantime my Nikon has veered from window to window at the Russell house, like a dog snouting out foxholes.

“No, I left about a half hour ago,” David says. “Went down to the coffee shop for a sandwich.” He lifts his shirt to his face, mops up the sweat. His stomach is corrugated. “You heard a scream?”

“Two of them. Loud and clear. Around six o’clock?”

He eyes his watch. “I might’ve been there, only I didn’t hear much,” he says, pointing to the earbud; the other swings against his thigh. “Except for Springsteen.”

It’s practically the first personal preference he’s ever expressed, but the timing is off. I steam ahead. “Mr. Russell didn’t say you were there. He said it was just him and his son.”

“Then I’d probably left.”

“I called you.” It sounds like a plea.

He frowns, takes his phone from his pocket, looks at it, frowns deeper, as though the phone has let him down. “Oh. You need something?”

“So you didn’t hear anyone scream.”

“I didn’t hear anyone scream.”

I turn. “You need something?” he says again, but I’m already moving toward the window, camera in hand.

I see him as he sets out. The door opens, and when it closes, there he is. He trips quickly down the steps, turns left, marches along the sidewalk. Toward my house.

When the bell rings a moment later, I’m already waiting by the buzzer. I press it, hear him enter the hall, hear the front door crack shut behind him. I open the hall door to find him standing there in the dark, eyes red and raw, the blood vessels frayed within them.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan says, hovering on the threshold.

“Don’t be. Come in.”

He moves like a kite, feinting first toward the sofa, then to the kitchen. “Do you want something to eat?” I ask him.

“No, I can’t stay.” Shaking his head, tears skittering down his face. Twice this child has set foot in my house, and twice he’s cried.

Of course, I’m accustomed to children in distress: weeping, shouting, pummeling dolls, flaying books. It used to be that Olivia was the only one I could hug. Now I open my arms to Ethan, spread them wide like wings, and he walks into them awkwardly, as though bumping into me.

For an instant, and then for a moment, I’m holding my daughter again—holding her before her first day of school, holding her in the swimming pool on our vacation in Barbados, clutching her amid the silent snowfall. Her heart beating against my own, a beat apart, a continuous drumline, blood surging through us both.

He mutters something indistinct against my shoulder. “What’s that?”

“I said I’m really sorry,” he repeats, prying himself free, skidding his sleeve beneath his nose. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine. Stop saying that. It’s fine.” I brush a lock of hair from my eye, do the same for him. “What’s going on?”

“My dad . . .” He stops, glances through the window at his house. In the dark it glowers like a skull. “My dad was yelling, and I needed to get out of the house.”

“Where’s your mom?”

He sniffles, swipes at his nose again. “I don’t know.” A couple of deep breaths and he looks me in the eye. “Sorry. I don’t know where she is. She’s fine, though.”

“Is she?”

He sneezes, looks down. Punch has slipped between his feet, grating his body against Ethan’s shins. Ethan sneezes again.

“Sorry.” Another sniffle. “Cat.” He looks around, as if surprised to find himself in my kitchen. “I should go back. My dad’ll be angry.”

“Sounds as though he’s already angry.” I tug a chair back from the table, gesture to it.

He considers the chair, then darts his eyes back to the window. “I’ve gotta go. I shouldn’t have come over. I just . . .”

“You needed to get out of the house,” I finish. “I understand. But is it safe to go back?”

To my surprise, he laughs, short and spiky. “He talks big. That’s all. I’m not afraid of him.”

“But your mom is.”

He says nothing.

As far as I can see, Ethan doesn’t display any of the more obvious hallmarks of child abuse: His face and forearms are unmarked, his demeanor bright and outgoing (although he has cried twice, let’s not forget that), his hygiene satisfactory. But this is just an impression, just a glance. And he is, after all, standing here in my kitchen, slinging nervous looks at his home across the park.

I push the chair back into place. “I want you to have my cell number,” I tell him.

He nods—grudgingly, I think, but it’ll do. “Could you write it down for me?” he asks.

“You don’t have a phone?”

A shake of the head. “He—my dad won’t let me.” He sniffles. “I don’t have email, either.”

Not surprising. I fetch an old receipt from a kitchen drawer, scribble on it. Four digits in, I realize I’m writing out my old work number, the emergency line I reserved for my patients. “1-800-ANNA-NOW,” Ed used to joke.

“Sorry. Wrong number.” I slash a line through it, then jot down the correct one. When I look up again, he’s standing by the kitchen door, looking across the park at his house.

“You don’t have to go back there,” I say.

He turns. Hesitates. Shakes his head. “I’ve gotta head home.”

I nod, offer him the paper. He pockets it.

“You can call me anytime,” I say. “And share that number with your mom too, please.”

“Okay.” He’s moving toward the door, shoulders back, back straight. Bracing for battle, I think.

“Ethan?”

He turns, one hand on the doorknob.

“I mean it. Anytime.”

He nods. Then he opens the door and walks out.

I return to the window, watch him walk past the park, climb the steps, push his key into the lock. He pauses, draws a breath. Then he disappears inside.