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“You need a clear head today,” she says.

Jamie stops spreading jam across his toast. Oliver lifts his coffee but doesn’t drink.

I unfold the paper. The list includes butter, cream, eggs, flour, peppers, chicken, and enough other ingredients to prove she’s been keeping notes while I complain about her kitchen.

“This olive oil is shit,” I tell her. “If you expect me to keep cooking with it, add a decent bottle.”

Heather slides a pen across the table. “Write down what you need.”

Jamie looks from the list to the black coat hanging over Heather’s chair. “You’re taking him with you?” he asks.

“Simon knows what belongs in my kitchen.” Heather turns his chin toward her and wipes the jam from his thumb with her napkin. “You’re needed here.”

He looks pleased right up until Heather stands behind my chair and folds the collar of my shirt into place.

Jamie watches her smooth both hands over my shoulders. He looks at the front door as if it’s taken something from him.

Heather touches the key beneath his throat. “Oliver stays downstairs while we’re gone. If he needs something from the closet, he asks you.”

Oliver sets down his coffee. “Jamie’s been promoted from doll to jailer.”

“He earned responsibility,” Heather says. Her thumb rubs once over the key before she lets it fall against Jamie’s throat. “You’ll respect it.”

Jamie glances at Oliver. “What if he asks for his phone?”

Heather takes her coat from the chair. “Then you decide whether he gets it.”

Oliver’s attention settles on the key. Jamie covers it with his hand.

“Have fun with that,” I say. I carry the list toward the door while Heather collects two canvas bags from the kitchen counter.

She unlocks each deadbolt and opens the door without putting a hand on me.

Cold air moves across my face. The morning smells like wet pavement, dead leaves and a world that’s continued without asking where the fuck I went. I step outside, and Heather locks the door behind us.

The car is the same one Heather used to take me. For a second, cream sits sweet and rotten at the back of my tongue.

Heather opens the door. “Get in.”

I could run before she reaches the other side. The nearest house has a truck in the driveway, a plastic tricycle on its porch, and a man in a brown coat wrestling a trash bin toward the curb without looking at either of us.

I sit in the passenger seat. Heather reaches across me, pulls the belt over my chest, and clicks it into place.

“That’s good,” she says. Then she shuts me inside.

She drives with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on my thigh. At every red light, people stop beside us without looking through the glass.

The grocery store is twelve minutes from the house. Heather’s never told any of us where we live, and twelve minutes is more useful than nothing.

She parks three spaces from the entrance and unbuckles me before she touches her own belt. “Stay where I can see you.”

“That ruins my plan to join the seafood counter and start a new life.” I get out anyway.

“If I turn around and you’re gone, I won’t call anyone. I’ll drive home.” She doesn’t have to say which room she’d open first.

She gives me the cart. She doesn’t hold my wrist, hook her fingers through my belt or keep a weapon pressed against my back.

The automatic doors open before I reach them. I count two exits, one beside the registers and another beyond the produce section marked for emergencies. Kitchen habit makes me find them before I look for anything else. Fire doesn’t wait for somebody to draw you a map.