January 2019
Ella was in the Diag, enjoying the clear, bright day as she watched the students, dressed in boots and coats and scarves, tromping through the snow between classes. Some of them smiled at her, as if she were another student, and impulsively she followed a group of them into Angell Hall, a building constructed in the style of the Greek Parthenon, with columns running up its front. Inside there were beautiful mosaic tiles on a vaulted ceiling, and she tipped her head back to drink in the view.
Ella meandered, finding her way into a lecture hall, and on an impulse took a seat near the back, her heart thudding. What if someone approached her and told her she didn’t belong here? What if they booted her out? She looked at the girl next to her, dressed in carefully ripped jeans, and imagined tearing her own jeans in the same style. She looked at the girl’s textbook, Ancient History for the Ages. Okay. That was what she’d learn here. Most students had laptops, but the girl next to her had a notebook, a pen.
She leaned toward the girl. “I forgot my notebook,” she said. “Can I borrow some paper, and a pen?”
“I hear you. I do that all the time,” the girl said. She ripped a few pages from her notebook and handed her a pen.
Ella watched the students settling in, flirting, talking, then growing quiet. Not one of them looked as frightened as she felt. She watched the professor, dressed in loose jeans, his hair long and tousled, talking about Caligula and how he had wanted to make his horse part of the Roman Senate. All the students were laughing, and Ella laughed, too. She had spent so much time practicing being an adult, learning to think like a working woman before she had even gotten to Ann Arbor and started her job. Now she realized that she also wanted to know what it was like to still be a kid. A college kid—something she had never been.
When the class was over, the girl next to her said, “See you next time,” and Ella stood there for a moment, stunned with joy. She could come back if she wanted. And next time, she’d have a notebook and pen. She could talk more to this girl; they might even become friends.
ON THE WAY home, she stopped at Wooly Bully to browse their selections of yarn while she happily waited for her meeting with Marianna and Carla, for Carla’s very first knitting lesson. Sometimes when she didn’t have a project in mind, she visited the shop just to touch the materials, and to imagine those luscious wools and cottons knit into something special. Today, though, she thought about what Carla might like for her first project.
As soon as she walked in, she felt warm. She loved this store. There were always a few people sitting around one of the blue tables knitting, getting a lesson, or just enjoying the vibe. There were stacks of knitting magazines on a rack by the window, and rows upon rows of blond shelves filled with yarns of different colors and textures. Knitting samples hung from some of the shelves so you could see what the yarn would look like in specific patterns.
Ella crouched down to pull out a skein of deep blue wool when she felt someone beside her, and then she was startled to feel breath against her ear.
“Boo!” Carla said, and she wheeled to see her daughter leaning down beside her. Marianna was looking on from several steps away, as dazzling as a mirage.
“I’m so glad we’re finally able to do this,” Marianna said, smiling.
Carla hopped on one foot, tugging at Ella’s hand. And then Ella remembered how Marianna had caught her attention on the playground, bribing her with money. Well, yarn wasn’t money, but, to Ella, it was close.
“Hey, Carla,” Ella said. “You can help me choose a yarn if you want to. You pick any color you like.”
Carla scanned the shelves, her face so serious that Ella had to smile. And then Carla looked at the yarn in Ella’s hand.
“That’s the same color as my mittens!” Carla said, splaying her hands.
Marianna looked from the mittens to Ella, and then frowned, as if she were trying to figure something out.
“Lots of yarns look alike,” Ella said quickly. “Lots of stitches do, too.” Marianna was holding Carla’s mitten against the yarn, comparing them. “Is something wrong?” Ella said.
Marianna waved her hand. “Nothing,” she said. “It’s just that someone left a pair of mittens for Carla a while ago, and they were made from this yarn.”
“Wow. That’s a nice gesture. Or do you not think so?” Ella said.
Marianna shrugged. “I just don’t know who to thank.”
Ella relaxed. In the end, she bought more blue yarn for herself, and a pair of short, thick plastic needles for Carla that would be easy for her small hands to handle. She also helped her pick out a pattern for a scarf she could make from some rainbow-colored yarn that Carla selected after much deliberation.
“A very wise choice,” Ella said, and Carla beamed.
“Can you teach me now, like right this very second? Like right, right now, this very very very second?” Carla asked.
Ella had never taught anyone else how to knit, but she remembered learning in prison, the teacher telling them a little singsong saying. “The mouse goes in, he gets the cheese,” the teacher had said, pulling up a stitch and then sliding it off the needle. “Then he runs away.”
Everyone in prison had knitted easy things. Potholders first, then scarves. A lot of the women had given it up after a while, bored. Ella, though, had quickly become addicted. She loved the hypnotic click of the needles, the way squares of knitting could be built into something new.
Ella looked at Carla’s open face. “Let’s sit at this table by the window,” she said.
Ella cast on stitches for Carla, promising to teach her how to do that step later, that the important thing now was to just get going. She even cast on some stitches for Marianna to try, offering her own needles from her purse.
“I’m making a scarf for Georgie,” Carla said.
“Her stuffed moose,” Marianna clarified.
Ella sat so close to Carla she could smell her hair, a faint strawberry shampoo. She could feel a kind of warmth radiating from her. Marianna gave up on her knitting after a while and just happily watched. As she pulled stitches from one needle to the other, Carla was filled with questions. Who made the yarn and why? Did the sheep ever know that the yarn was from them and how did they feel about it? Could you knit with your fingers if you lost your needles?
Ella knew what she was really asking. “Honey, if you lose your needles, I’ll buy you more. You don’t have to worry.”
“I won’t lose them,” Carla said, but the whole time they were knitting, Carla kept her fingers gripped on the needles.
By the time they left, Carla had a whole inch of scarf, and even though Marianna tucked it into a bag, Carla kept fishing it out.
“Just making sure it’s still there,” she explained.
All three of them were walking through the park when, to Ella’s surprise, there was Mark in the distance, coming toward them. That was so lucky, she thought. She could finally meet him. She had won over Marianna, and she could win over Mark, too. But as she got closer, she saw his face darken.
“Oh, fuck,” Marianna said quietly.
“Mommy said a bad word!” Carla said.
“What’s the matter?” Ella said. But before Marianna could tell her, Carla was running to Mark. “Daddy!” Carla shouted, hurling herself into his arms, not letting go. Mark put a hand on her head and said something to her.
“I’d better go see what he wants,” Marianna said, and it was as if all the joy had been squeezed out of her.
“I should go—” Ella said, but Marianna held up one hand and Ella saw it was trembling.
“No,” Marianna said. “Stay. This will only take a moment.”
“Should I come with you?” Ella said, and Marianna’s face tightened.
“Please, just wait here,” she said.
Marianna’s walk was different when she approached Mark. Slower, almost slumped, but when she got to him, she drew herself up. Carla was behind her father now, her arms wrapped happily around his legs, but Marianna was shaking her head no, no. Again, no. Then Mark shoved Marianna, and she stumbled, catching herself. He shoved her again and this time she fell, sprawling in the snow.
Ella felt a stab of fury. “Hey!” she shouted.
Carla jumped back, biting her thumbnail, staring down at the ground where her mother was slowly gathering herself.
Mark loomed over Marianna threateningly. Without thinking, Ella ran toward them. Mark glared at her and then abruptly turned and strode away.
Carla folded herself around her mother, not speaking. Ella crouched down and gently helped Marianna to her feet.
“Are you okay?” Ella asked, but Marianna ignored her. “Marianna?” she repeated. “What’s going on? What just happened? I thought that Mark—”
Marianna lifted her hair up from her collar and smoothed it. She brushed the snow off her jeans and looked down to survey the damage, then took a deep breath.
“Nothing’s going on,” Marianna said. She stroked back Carla’s hair. “Everything’s fine, baby,” she said.
Ella saw the scrapes on Marianna’s hands, the rip in her collar. “Marianna—” she said, but Marianna turned to Carla.
“Who wants hot chocolate?” Marianna said abruptly.
“Me!” Carla took her fingers out of her mouth.
“Who wants some nice numbing caffeine?” Marianna said wearily.
“Me,” Ella said quietly, and she took Marianna’s arm.
THEY WENT TO Child’s Play, a local café that had a special play area for kids, with blocks and crafts and plastic toys. They waited for Carla to get settled and then sat down in the seating area for parents.
“I wish you hadn’t seen that,” Marianna said. “It’s nothing. Really. He came home and we weren’t back yet, so he came to find us. Of course he got mad and blamed me.” She pushed out a breath.
“I want you to know that I’m excellent at minding my own business,” Ella said. “But is everything okay?”
Marianna’s shoulders drooped. “He wasn’t always like this,” Marianna said. “When I first met him, he was head bartender at the Jordan Hotel, with a 401(k) and benefits, not to mention regular, healthy tips.
“The first time I walked in—I know this sounds stupid, because he didn’t know me at all—but he became protective. I was there in the crowded bar, but somehow he made sure none of the guys at the bar would bother me. Drinks would appear in front of me without my having to order. I started to like it and so I came more often, spending time with him, flirting. And then one day, when I was ready to go, he politely asked for my number.”
It was easy after that, Marianna said. They started seeing each other, going to movies, taking walks. He was so intensely loving, buying her flowers, telling her over and over how pretty she was, how smart. She had never had attention like that. He looked at her like she was made of stardust. She had grown up in a household of yellers—both her father and mother tearing her down for tiny missteps, somehow unable to show their only daughter that they loved her. With Mark there was never any yelling, only tempered, constant support, and a kind of unbridled adulation that felt like a drug to her.
“He shoved you,” Ella said.
“His weapon of choice is usually words,” Marianna said.
The coffees came and Marianna reached for hers. “He doesn’t really hit me.”
“Marianna,” Ella persisted, “what about in the park?”
Marianna chewed her bottom lip. “He knows that if he ever hurts Carla, I’m walking.”
“What if he puts hands on you again?”
“I promise, it’s really not an issue.”
The coffee was dark and bitter, but Ella drank it in gulps. “What did he want?” she asked.
“I guess some women might be flattered, but I’m not. He’s just jealous,” Marianna said. “Sometimes I think he follows me, making sure I’m not flirting with other guys. But I never can catch him at it.
“Today, he found a note on my dresser, a note I had scribbled to remind myself to call my boss. Call Tom. That’s all it said. Call Tom.”
Marianna’s cell rang and she tugged it out of her purse and then showed it to Ella. MARK. She clicked it off.
“There it is. The apology. Well, let him wait,” she said.
She sighed and rubbed the damp table with a finger. “Want to know something? Our romance was the stuff of fairy tales. My friends were all jealous because even after Carla arrived, we were still holding hands all the time, looking at each other like… Well, you know. There was no one else I wanted to be with. I used to rush home just to talk to him. Just to see what little surprises he had for both of us.”
“What happened?”
Marianna shrugged. “After Carla started in day care, I got a job as an accountant. Before I got that job, we could barely afford our bills, even with Mark’s tips. But when I started working, things started to change. I suddenly had money to buy nicer shirts, more professional skirts. I even had people looking up to me, coworkers inviting me out to lunch. And suddenly Mark didn’t like that. He wanted me to quit my job, to be a fifties wife, someone who’d have dinner on the table when he wasn’t working, who’d keep a clean house. That’s not me. It never was, so why would he suddenly expect it?” Marianna took a sip of her coffee.
“My life got fuller and his began to thin,” she said. “He lost his job at the Jordan Hotel for talking back to their manager. But he landed his job at the Old Town Tavern so quickly, I didn’t worry too much. But it was definitely a step down, and he started drinking more and bringing the bar home with him.”
“Mommy, look!” Carla shouted, holding up a drawing of a house and a huge smiling sun. Marianna blew a kiss to her.
“Marianna…,” Ella said, “could you leave him?”
“You think it’s so simple? We have a nice house, but it’s his—his parents left it to him. It’s in his name. And Carla adores him,” Marianna said. “She’s a child. What does she know except wanting everyone to love her, especially her daddy? It breaks my heart to see the way she yearns after him. She’s as desperate for his love as I had been at first.” She lowered her voice. “Before I knew better.”
“Was he good with her when you were… pregnant?” Ella said. The coffee burned her stomach. She knew she shouldn’t have asked, she felt her face heating, but Marianna tilted her head.
“We adopted Carla as a newborn.”
Ella couldn’t meet her eyes. She dug her hands deeper into her pockets. “Did you know the birth parents?” she asked carefully.
“A closed adoption. A precious baby girl. But closed was better for everyone, we were told.” Marianna smiled, remembering. “I didn’t see her birth, but I always imagined it. You know that saying, you didn’t grow in my belly but you grew in my heart? It was like that. And she knows she’s adopted. We told her very calmly, matter-of-factly. That the mommy who had carried her, the daddy, couldn’t keep her and so with the greatest of love, they let her go.”
Ella pushed the coffee away. Words jammed in her throat, and she felt dizzy.
“Did she ever ask more about her parents?” Ella said.
“We’re her parents,” Marianna said.
Ella felt sick. She got up from her chair. “I need to go. I didn’t realize the time—”
Marianna pulled herself up and smiled. “Oh, of course. And I want to thank you so much. For hanging with us like this, for adult conversation. I work with adults, but you know, work conversation isn’t the same. It seems like all my friends have drifted away over the years.” She waved to Carla. “It’s hard sometimes.” Marianna pulled out her phone again. “I feel embarrassed telling you all this.”
“No, no, I’m glad. It makes me feel close to you, like we’re friends.”
Marianna handed her the phone, brightening. “We are friends, aren’t we? Here, put your number in. That way we won’t have to wait to run into each other. Carla clearly likes you. Maybe next time, we can take her to the bookstore. And I’ll put my office number into yours. You can call me there.” She cast her eyes down. “That’s best.”
“Why is it best?” Ella said, but before Marianna could answer, Carla suddenly ran into her, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“I think you’ve made another friend,” Marianna said.
Ella dared to stroke Carla’s hair. After a moment, Carla ran to Marianna and plopped herself onto her lap.
Ella’s hands hung by her side, useless now, yearning to have the girl back. Carla snuggled into Marianna and bounced off her lap again. Maybe, Ella thought, that was just part of having a child. You keep grasping for them to stay, and they keep moving farther and farther away from you. Maybe that’s what she had done to Helen—and she immediately felt a rush of guilt.
“Are we going to see Daddy now?” Carla said.
“Can’t live without her daddy,” Marianna said thoughtfully. And then she said quietly to Ella, “Can’t live with him, either.” Her forehead buckled. “Maybe you’re right. What you said. Sometimes I think I should just leave.”
Ella froze. “Would you?” she asked. What would that mean for Carla? How would it change her own relationship with the little girl?
Marianna grew still. Then her eyes met Ella’s. “I feel terrible even saying a thing like that.”
“Can’t live without Daddy,” Carla repeated, tugging on Marianna’s sleeve. “Come on, Mommy, let’s go.”
Marianna said quietly, “How would I manage on my own? What would that even look like?”
She looked so scared, it scared Ella. She wanted to tell her that you could surprise yourself by your own strength when you were forced to. But then she’d have to tell her how she knew that, and she couldn’t.
“Mommy, let’s go!” Carla said.
“We’ll talk more,” Marianna said, and then she took Carla’s hand and they left.
ELLA TRUDGED TOWARD home, feeling as if she were swimming, drowning. She didn’t notice the snow seeping into her cheap boots, her fingers so cold she couldn’t move them. She was insane getting involved with Marianna, letting her confide in her. Sure, she liked her, and the more she got to know Carla, the more in love she was, but neither one of them was really hers to care about. Plus, there was Mark. She had liked him at first, from what she had seen while spying, but today she was horrified. She knew what people who hit were like. Someone who hit once would surely hit again, and she couldn’t bear thinking of Marianna or Carla being a target. She’d have to talk to Marianna again. And she’d have to keep watch.
She walked around, winding in and out of stores. She headed for Wood You, because the things there were so beautiful—the shining maples, the dark walnut tables, the tall dressers with carved edges that she ached to touch. She could dream of saving for them, of having a table like the chair in her home, but she always knew it was just a dream, that she’d never have the money. And maybe she was also going there because she hoped to see Henry, his presence friendly and calming.
When she got to Wood You, it was closed, but the lights were still on. Henry was inside, waving at her. He opened the door.
“Hey, there,” he said. “How’s the chair?”
It was the first time she had seen him without his hat. His hair was curly, in need of a cut, but she liked it, how wild it was—full of possibilities.
“The chair is wonderful.”
“Come on in,” he said. She walked inside and he looked like he was going to say something more, but then he seemed skittish, like he’d changed his mind. He stepped farther into the store and then stooped, and she didn’t know what he was doing until he grabbed for a cup and a slice of cardboard. And then she saw the roach, as big as her thumb, racing right toward her.
“Oh God!” she yelped, jumping up and then away.
Henry was moving closer to the roach, calm and steady. “I know I’m probably the only person on the planet like this, but I just can’t kill roaches,” he said. He crouched down and put the cup over the insect, and then slid the thin piece of cardboard beneath it.
“There you go,” he said. Then he took the cup and cardboard outside, freeing the roach back into the city.
“Safe travels,” he called after it.
Ella felt a flush of warmth.
“There,” Henry said when he came back in. “Now he’ll go back to his community and tell them how kind I was, and his whole roachy family will probably come tomorrow and I’ll have to lead them out, too.”
She felt an invisible hand on her back, nudging her toward him.
“Come see the back,” he said, his face perking up with excitement, and she followed him into his workspace. There was a large dining table with curved, claw-footed legs, and she thought, How beautiful. For a moment she remembered how Jude had been so passionate about plants, but Jude had never been calm like Henry.
Henry ran his hand over the tabletop. “It needs to be sanded and stained. Want to help? It’s great for stress.”
“Do I look stressed?” she asked, curious.
He shook his head. “Everyone’s stressed, aren’t they? Just make sure to go with the grain, not across it.”
He handed her a square and she began to sand, rubbing harder and harder, and though they didn’t talk, she felt that the rasp of the squares was a kind of communication in its own way. The smoother the wood became, the more she felt the stresses of her life begin to recede. Her yearning for Carla was still there, but now the anxiety was gone. Her complicated feelings toward Marianna had loosened, and suddenly it didn’t seem so terrible that she was friends with a woman who was almost twenty years older than she and mothering her daughter. She ran her fingers over the area she had smoothed, smiling, and moved over to sand a new section.
“I’ve been thinking,” Henry said, and Ella looked up, pulled out of her trance. “We should go out sometime. What do you think?”
Ella thought about going back to her lonely apartment, about all the voices in her letters clamoring for her to answer.
“I think Friday would be good.”
THEY BEGAN SEEING each other, and the more she saw of him, the easier their friendship became. One week passed, and then two and three, and then it had been an entire month. What she liked most about Henry was his excitement about furniture. They could be in a dive bar, and he’d show her a curve built into the corner of the table, or point out how a chair was made of three kinds of wood, and where each began. She started picking things up about furniture, almost by osmosis, noticing the flared dovetailed joints, feeling a surface to see if it had bubbles in the lacquer.
She liked talking to him, and when she repeated to him the same lies that she had told so many times now, they felt like the truth.
He told her how his parents had wanted him to be a doctor, like his dad, but then in eighth grade he had taken a woodworking class, and that was that.
“All the other kids were making square lamp bases, but I carved a dog,” he said. She liked that he loved wood, that he was happy in his work. She liked that he didn’t ask her too many questions, which made it easier to talk. She told herself Henry was just someone to talk to, someone who paid her attention when she most needed it. He never asked for more, never pushed her for anything, and she liked that, too.
She began to feel him everywhere in Ann Arbor—if not his very person, then his designs. She couldn’t figure out why she felt so comfortable at a new restaurant until she bent and looked down at the table legs. Delicate carvings—Henry’s signature. She stroked the arm of the chair, and when she left, she told the waitress, “I’ll be back.” Truthfully, the food wasn’t very good, the eggs had been too runny, but that chair—that chair beckoned her as if it were saying, “You are always welcome here.”
ONE EVENING SHE was helping Henry sand some new pieces in the workroom in the back of the shop when she got a splinter. “Ow, ow, ow,” she said, putting her finger in her mouth.
Henry dropped the sandpaper and took her hand, studying it. “Oh, that’s a beaut,” he said. “You sit right there.”
She sat on the chair and felt him studying her fingers. She started to think about the curve of his throat, the funny way his ears sometimes poked out from his hair. She started to want to touch him, to feel a tug of desire. She looked at him, waiting, but he was still teasing out the splinter. He wasn’t sharp and jagged like Mark, someone who could hurt. He wasn’t Jude, either. His life seemed more contained, with less of Jude’s darkness.
“Henry,” Ella said. And then she bent toward him, like a flower on a stem, and kissed his mouth. Not like a friend. Like a lover.
“Not here,” he said.
They walked the three blocks to his apartment building, which looked more like a two-story house with an attic. He opened the front door and she followed him up the stairs into his apartment, a two-bedroom with bay windows, and, of course, lovely furniture.
When she saw his bed, the headboard carved with stars along the top, she touched the stars with amazement. “This,” she said, astonished, and he smiled and touched her face.
“This,” he said, and kissed her.
AFTERWARD, THEY LAY in his bed, the sheets crumpled on the floor. He reached over for one of her curls and wound it around his fingers.
“Well, that was a surprise,” he said, and Ella laughed.
“Surprises can be good,” she said.
“Do you want me to walk you home? Or do you want to sleep here?” he asked.
Ella thought about going home, being alone in her apartment. It called to her, a siren song, but then she thought, what if she did leave, and left Henry ruminating about the evening? What if he decided he didn’t want to be with her anymore? That she was too quiet? Too strange?
“I’ll stay,” she said.
That night, she couldn’t sleep. She had known she wouldn’t be able to, not in a strange bed. She watched him sleep for a while and slipped out of bed and walked to his living room. She saw his wallet on the floor and, unable to resist, picked it up, opening it to see a photo of a woman, young and beautiful. She peered at the writing on the bottom of the photo: Love always, Alice, and to her surprise she felt a pang. Well, who was she to talk? Hadn’t she kept a photo of Jude for years in prison? By the time she was released, she had worn it down so much you couldn’t even make out who it was anymore.
She crawled back into bed, and Henry stirred.
“Hey, you,” he said sleepily.
“Who’s Alice?” she said. “Oh my God, I’m so nosy. I was just in the living room and I saw a photo and—”
“It’s okay,” he said quietly.
She waited.
“She is just someone from my past. That’s all.” He sat up, and there was that calm again. “I was supposed to marry her… until she ran off with my best friend.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry—”
“That’s why I didn’t bring you back to my place at first, why I waited a whole month, biding my time,” he said. “I’m slow to trust.”
“But you do trust—”
“I think I trust you,” he said.
“But you still keep the photo,” she said.
He looked pained. “Maybe it’s there to remind me to be careful.”
“You don’t have to talk about it,” Ella said. “Let’s go back to sleep.”
AFTER THAT FIRST night, she began staying over more and more, though she could never sleep through the night. She awoke at three, and then at five, her heart pounding. Not wanting to disturb Henry, she would carefully slide out from under the sheets and walk around his apartment, or sit in his living room, reading one of his books until she started to drift off again. She never told him about her nighttime jaunts, and he never mentioned them.
Henry was the only man she had been with besides Jude, and Jude had been everything to her. Still, being with Henry was so different than being with Jude. Jude and she had what felt like a telepathic connection, in each other’s head all the time. But she never could be sure what Henry was thinking, and when she asked him, he would shrug and change the subject. She liked being at his place, working, reading, listening to him. She even liked it when she got up in the middle of the night and she could just be quiet and still, reading through the books on Henry’s shelves.
One morning, at Henry’s, her own shouting woke her.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Henry said, hovering over her.
“Nothing,” she said. “I just had a bad dream.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t remember it.” She tried to look cheerful because she did remember things from the dream. Her bed in prison. A teacup filling with hot water. The garden behind their shabby apartment building in Queens—the earth loamy and dark. The garden smell, the way the plants had poked up their green heads. The way Jude had tilted his chin up when he was upset.
“It was just a stupid dream,” she said, and then she saw Henry’s shoulders relax. He held her closer.
He tumbled into sleep, but she lay awake. It was dangerous not to be in control here, to give someone knowledge of things you had kept secret, a weapon they could use against you. She knew, too, how love could make you do things you never would have imagined. She struggled to keep her eyes open.
She didn’t know how much of her real life she could share. Certainly not the past. Her present was a different story. Henry hadn’t seen her with Carla or with Marianna yet. He didn’t know how important they both were to her or why, and if he found out, she had no idea what he might think. She couldn’t figure out how she would defend herself or even explain what she was doing.
She thought of the day she had given birth, how they wouldn’t let her hold or even see her baby. How no one could be in the room with her except the doctor and a nurse. How she had cried for her mom, then for her baby, and then for herself. How she had tamped most of that memory down because it was so painful.
She couldn’t tell Henry.
She couldn’t open everything up again like that. The stakes were simply too high.