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"You said it. Visitors only. People who are leaving."

"I said I had rules. I never said you were one."

"That is the definition of a rule, Ethan. A person you do a specific thing with in a specific way so nobody gets hurt."

"That isn't what last night was."

"Then what was it?"

I open my mouth. For the first time in a long while, nothing comes out.

The refrigerator hums. In the yard Faith shrieks with laughter at something my mother said.

"I'm not angry that you have a daughter. I want to be clear about that. I'm not angry that she's seven and she's wonderful and she wants to hold my skillet. I'm angry you took a woman you've known for fifteen hours to your front door, to a child, and let me find out because she ran at you."

"I was going to tell you."

"You said before we go in. I heard it. It was about forty seconds too late."

"Because you were in danger, and I wasn't thinking about the order of anything."

"That isn't the part I mean."

"I know it isn't." I take a breath. "Faith's been left once. I don't intend to hand her a string of people to get attached to, so I decided a long time ago that I wouldn't. It's not about you. It's about her."

"Left." She says it slowly.

"Not now. Please. I'll tell you. Not in this kitchen with her thirty feet away."

She looks at me for a long moment. Some of the stiffness leaves her shoulders, though not all. "You could have told me in the orchard."

"Would you have come up the hill with me?"

She doesn't answer right away. Something moves across her face, surprise and then honesty, which I'm beginning to understand she can't help.

"Probably," she says.

"Then that's why I didn't say it." My voice has gone lower than I want. "I knew I'd have to tell you eventually, and I knew what your face would do when I did. I wanted one night where nobody's face did that."

"Is it doing it now?"

"Yeah."

"What's it doing?"

"It's looking at me like I disappointed you."

"You did." She says it simply. Then, more quietly: "I'm furious with you, and I'm going to sleep in your spare room, and I won't be anything to that child but a friend of yours who needs a bed. I'm not going to be a woman who passes through her life. I won't do it."

"That's what I want too."

"Good."

"Fine."

"Fine."

We stand there looking at each other across six feet of linoleum.