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His lip is bleeding, and his face is tight with pain, but something hungry remains underneath it. When Heather lays the baton across his throat, he tips his chin as though he’s helping her find the right place.

Dumb fucker has no idea.

“Heather,” I say. My voice sounds too small beside the blood and overturned cups.

She presses the baton harder into Simon’s throat. His head pushes against the floor, but he doesn’t lift a hand to stop her.

I get down beside them. My knees land among the beads, and one digs in hard enough to hurt. “Please stop.”

Heather doesn’t look at me. Simon’s face has begun to darken above the baton, and his mouth opens without getting enough air to say anything.

I reach for her and stop before touching. Oliver tried that, and he’s still curled beside the beanbag with one arm locked across his stomach.

“Please, Heather.” I lower myself until I’m kneeling beside her. “He didn’t mean to break it. He was trying to keep you from getting hurt.”

Her attention shifts to me at last. There’s nothing in her expression I know how to soften.

“He broke what you made me.”

“I know.” The words hurt more than the bead beneath my knee. “I saw.”

Simon’s eyes move toward me.

“Please don’t,” I say.

Heather studies my face for several seconds before lifting the baton from Simon’s throat. He drags air into his lungs and rolls onto one side, coughing against the floor. Relief makes me stupid enough to think I reached her. Then she stands.

“Oliver, put your glasses on.” Heather wipes Simon’s blood from her knuckles onto the white tablecloth. “Both of you go to your rooms.”

Oliver gets one knee beneath himself. He reaches under the beanbag, finds his glasses and puts them on with hands that don’t quite work. One side sits crooked against his face.

Simon stays on the floor longer. Heather looks down at him until he pushes himself upright, one arm wrapped around his ribs. He glances at the beads before following Oliver from the room.

I remain on my knees among the beads. Heather doesn’t tell me to move, so I watch her instead.

She turns toward the dollhouse.

The tiny tea party is still arranged in the little playroom. Heather opens the front and takes out Simon. She lays the doll across her palm, removes the dark red sleep pants and puts them beside the tiny table. Then she reaches into the basket beneath the house and finds the white jacket he wore before she brought the real Simon home.

I remember unfastening those tiny buttons on Simon’s first night. Now she fastens the white jacket around him again.

The little Simon goes back onto the shelf above the dollhouse, alone where he sat before he had a room. Heather adjusts his legs and straightens the collar until he looks exactly as he did while she was still choosing whether the real one belonged here.

One chair at the miniature table is empty now.

I get to my feet. Heather leaves the playroom without looking back. I follow her past the kitchen and up the stairs.

Oliver is standing inside the green room when we reach it. Heather closes his door and locks it.

Simon waits at the entrance to the red room. He looks from Heather to me as if one of us might explain why she stopped hitting him.

“Inside,” she says.

He goes. Heather walks into the room, and I follow. Simon sits on the edge of the bed, one hand against his ribs, while she crosses to the wardrobe.

The hangers slide one at a time beneath her fingers.

Simon watches without understanding. I understand enough for both of us.