Nate jumped at Shannon’s voice, although he covered it quickly with a cough. It was 6:30 a.m. and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t expected someone to be in the kitchen—the light was on, coffee made—but he hadn’t seen her sitting at the table in the breakfast nook. For reasons that only made sense when they’d been nine, he and Danny used to sit underneath that table for breakfast every morning until they did something horrible and messy and had to report to the big table in the dining room, where the first and last meals of the day had been family affairs, complete with table settings and lessons in manners. It was yet another adjustment to find Shannon in the nook, half in shadow, in the now familiar pink robe. “I’m house hunting,” he said, bringing down a large mug from the cupboard. He’d missed her the past few days. According to Mr. Fitz, she’d been staying late at work, and Nate and Danny had been catching up with friends at old haunts. He’d looked for Shannon, though, each morning.
