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"Okay. But you have to think about it."

"I will."

"A lot."

"A lot," I promise.

"Faith, honey," Ruth says, "go and wash your hands before your dad sees what you've done to that sweater." She sends Faith up the stairs with a hand on her back, then she comes slowly toward me.

For one second I think she's going to say something that will make me cry. She only touches my arm. "I'll run her bath. Take as long as you need."

She goes up. I hear the water start. I stand with Faith's drawing against my chest, in the narrow warm hall, and I look up. Ethan is standing in the doorway of the kitchen with his arms hanging at his sides and his face the color of paper.

"She drew me," I say.

"I saw."

"She drew my dimple, Ethan."

"I know." He rubs the back of his neck. "I know she did."

"What do we do about that?"

I wait. I don't mean to. I know what I'm doing, even as I do it: I'm standing in his hall holding a seven-year-old's crayon drawing against my heart, giving him exactly as long as I'd give anyone to answer a plain question.

I'm waiting for him to say We keep it. I'm waiting for Stay. I'm waiting for him to tell me the rest of the sentence he started under the tree on the swing, the one that ended in I'm not asking anything yet.

He doesn't say any of those.

"I think we're smart. She's seven, Carolina. She gets attached in a day. You've been here two days, and she's already... I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm saying it's a lot. If she gets used to you being in the picture, and then you go home tomorrow like you said, she's the one who's left holding the paper."

"I know that."

"And you live four hours away, with a whole life I don't know how to ask you to leave. I just think we shouldn't make a seven-year-old promises before we know what this is."

Before we know.

It's a perfectly reasonable sentence. I turn it over, looking for the flaw. There isn't one. I've said versions of it myself to patients' families, to a woman whose husband wanted to get back on a bicycle too soon. It's measured and responsible, and every word of it is exactly what a good father ought to say.

I hear what's underneath it, too, as clearly as I'd hear a rattle in an engine. Before we know whether you're staying. And, quieter: Before I decide whether I'll let you.

"That's completely reasonable," I say.

His whole face changes. "That isn't what I meant."

"I think it's exactly what you meant. And it's sensible. I'd say the same thing in your place."

"Carolina."

"I'm safe now. Kieran said so. There's no reason for me to take up your spare room." I fold the drawing in half, once, and tuck it into the back pocket of my jeans. "I'll go back to the farmhouse tonight."

"You don't have to go tonight."

"I know."

"It's dark."

"I've driven in the dark before."