Iris opened the door in work clothes and socks. Behind her, a pot was boiling over.
“Come in,” she said, and went to rescue it.
Nina stood on the mat holding a bag she'd brought from a shop because arriving empty-handed had seemed worse than arriving with unnecessary bread. Iris turned off the heat and moved the pot. Water hissed beneath it.
“Sorry,” Nina said.
“You didn't turn it up.”
“I meant—”
“I know. Shoes.”
Nina took them off. She followed her sister into the kitchen and put the bread on the counter. Iris glanced at it.
“I bought that exact one yesterday.”
“Freeze it.”
“There's no room.”
“I'll take it back.”
Iris looked up. They both laughed, unexpectedly, and then Nina was crying. No warning, no graceful beginning. She put her hands over her face. Iris turned back to the stove and found a spoon.
“Sit,” she said.
Nina sat. Her sister put a glass of water in front of her and left her alone long enough to be able to drink it.
When she could talk, Nina explained the suspension and the financial account. Iris leaned against the counter, listening with her arms folded.
“You can see it's me,” Nina said at last.
“Yes, Nina.”
“I know that's a stupid thing to say.”
“It's been a stupid day.”
She pushed a tissue box across the table. Nina took one.
“What did Adam say?” Iris asked.
“I haven't told him about work.”
“Why?”
Nina rolled the tissue between her fingers. “There's something I don't understand about him.”
“That's marriage.”
“Not this.”
Iris waited. Nina told her about the hospital, the question, the first house and the man who knew Adam. She didn't try to make every part sound as though it proved the next. When she finished, Iris moved the pot onto a cold burner and sat opposite her.
“Do you think he's dangerous?”
“I don't know.”
“Has he hurt you?”
“No.”
“Frightened you?”
Nina looked at the tissue in her hands. “Yesterday I would have said no.”
Iris reached for her own phone. “You can stay. I need to tell—”
“I don't need to stay.”
Her sister put the phone down. “Okay.”
“I need somewhere to leave copies of things. And if I have to leave my car somewhere, I might need a lift.”
“Fine.”
“If anybody asks you to confirm who I am—”
“Then I'll tell them.”
“It might not be straightforward. They could have information that—”
“Nina.”
She stopped.
“I know who you are. I'll tell someone if you ask me to. I don't need coaching.”
Nina looked toward the window. A laundry rack stood in front of it with a man's shirt hanging at the center, arms folded backward over the bars. It made the kitchen seem occupied by someone patiently waiting to be noticed.
“I wasn't coaching.”
Iris didn't answer.
The silence reached the old argument before either of them named it. Nina could feel it approaching and wanted to keep speaking, to make a bridge over it out of everything that was happening now.
“I should have called before this.”
“You did call before this.”
“Properly.”
“You wanted to know if Dad's appointment had been changed.”
“That's not why I—”
Iris raised her eyebrows.
Nina shut her mouth. From the apartment below them came a short burst of music, cut off almost at once.
“He wanted to go home,” Iris said.
Nina looked at her. “He couldn't.”
“I didn't say he could. I said he wanted to. You treated me as if telling you that was the same as saying we should carry him out.”
“I was trying to listen to the doctors.”
“So was I.”
Nina remembered the hospital room, the bed that seemed too large for their father. Iris saying he'd asked for his own slippers, Nina pointing to the footwear somebody had brought him. Something about grips and safety, the good reason she had supplied instead of hearing the request. Not a decision that changed his treatment. Not a great catastrophe. Just one more time her sister had stopped telling her something.
“I was frightened,” Nina said.
“I know. You acted like that was information only you had.”
Nina looked down. She wanted to say Iris had left her alone with decisions. Some of that was true. She could say it now and make the afternoon about apportioning the old loneliness, or she could sit in her sister's kitchen and accept that she'd been offered a place to put her bag.
“Can I use the table?” she asked.
Iris got up and moved a pile of mail.
They copied what Nina actually had: the address note, the officer's card, her parking-ticket reference from Waymark and the written employment contact. Iris had an old printer that complained over each page as if it resented evidence of its own survival. Nina didn't have the underlying complaint records with her; she wrote down the references she knew and marked them as references, not copies.
Iris put the pages in a folder and wrote Nina's name on it. Then she asked where she should keep it.
“Somewhere you can find it.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Nina nearly smiled. “I meant—”
“I know.”
Her phone rang. Adam. She went as far as the hallway before answering, then stopped because she didn't want to make Iris feel that the whole point of coming was to borrow a room for a private marital conversation.
“They called me,” he said.
“The police?”
“Yes. I told them I knew him. What I told you.”
“All of it?”
“Nina.”
She waited.
“Where are you?”
“Iris's.”
He sounded relieved. “Good.”
“The man at Ansel invited me to tonight's housewarming. You know the address.”
“It's not a good idea.”
“Why?”
“You've had a lot going on.”
She looked at Iris, who was putting the folder on a high shelf without pretending not to hear.
“That's my reason. What's yours?”
He didn't answer at once.
“I know some of the people,” he said.
“Then I'll know somebody.”
“I'll come get you.”
“Send the address. I'll meet you.”
He began to say something, stopped and said okay. The address appeared while she was still holding the phone.
Iris waited until she'd hung up.
“You want a ride there?”
“I can drive.”
“You can. You also asked for help. That was one of the things.”
Nina sat down again. She'd been holding herself upright all afternoon by refusing to need the particular thing someone offered. Now her own car was parked safely outside, the copies were on Iris's shelf, and the prospect of being delivered somewhere without having to find parking felt impossibly attractive.
“Would you mind?”
“I'll take you. I can't wait all night.”
“I know.”
“And if he makes you uncomfortable, call me. Don't spend an hour explaining why it wasn't really uncomfortable.”
Nina nodded.
Iris put the pot back on the stove. “You have to eat first.”
“It's a party.”
“Then it'll be crackers.”
She served them both the same simple food, still warm. Nina ate at the table while her sister stood beside the counter, moving things from one bag to another for tomorrow. She didn't ask what the bags were for. After a few minutes she thought to ask. Iris told her, and the answer had nothing to do with Nina.