The suitcase hit the stoop with a sound like finality. Martha Zeng's voice had the practiced thinness of someone used to an audience. "You will not embarrass me in my own home," she said, loud enough for the whole hallway to overhear. She didn't so much shove the bag as push Katelyn herself—an heirloom push, equal parts soap-opera stage direction and calculated cruelty. Neighbors leaned from their thresholds like islanders at a storm. Old Mr. Hanley with his slippers, the new couple with the stroller who always scrolled during conversations, a woman from three doors down holding a yoga mat like a shield. Someone already had a phone up, the screen a small square of glowing accusation. Katelyn could see her face reflected in it—pale, mascara everywhere—and realized the woman would upload the clip before the elevator dinged. "Get out," Martha said again, softer now because the cameras were on. Her face had all the theatrical angles that had earned her sympathy and checks over twenty years; she folded pain into voice like a skilled seamstress. "I won't have my home turned into a circus." Katelyn's hands were empty. That might be why it hurt the worst. A life condensed into a nylon suitcase—three sweaters, a pair of shoes, Tess's kindergarten painting rolled into a tube—and whatever dignity could be stuffed into the pockets. She wanted to tell Martha to stop, to call Cade, to explain that Ezra had