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“Are we staying here again tonight? I want to go home.”

My hands stop on the keyboard.

On Sunday I called it his house.

“Yes. Tonight.”

Her backpack slides from one shoulder.

“For how long?”

“I do not know yet.”

She nods and carries the backpack toward the sofa. Usually she would ask for food before the bag reached the floor. Today she sits instead.

I close the laptop on the dining table.

“Tova.”

“I know. Mathematics.”

“That is not what I was going to say.”

She looks at me.

I move to the other end of the sofa.

That night I told her she had to come. I have replayed everything around that answer since, though not the answer itself.

“I should have asked you Sunday.”

Her face changes slightly.

“Asked me what?”

“If you wanted to leave that night.”

“You were mad.”

“Yes.”

“At Colt.”

“Yes.”

“So we left.”

I wait.

She pulls one knee onto the sofa.

“I didn’t want to.”

The sentence is quiet enough that I almost answer too quickly. I let it stay where she put it.

“You did not?”

“No.”