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moved in with Taryn’s family, before our elderly aunt had died, leaving us with no one to take us in.
    The key was right where I’d thought it’d be, in a peony pot under the front window.
    Some things never change , I thought to myself.
    I wondered if she’d left it there specifically for me, knowing it was arrogant to think such a thing until I saw the note on her kitchen counter.
    Mason,
    Hope you found the key instead of picking my lock or whatever it is you do these days. I’m at my brother’s, dropping off clothes for Daisy. You were right; the police laughed me out of the building yesterday. They won’t help us.
    There’s salad in the fridge if you’re hungry.
    Taryn.
    A smile tugged at my mouth. Somehow she’d known I’d be back today. She still knew me, despite all the things about me I’d thought inexorably altered. Despite all the crimes I carried on my shoulders, Taryn was still letting me into her home and trying to take care of me, just like she had all those years ago.
    I didn’t deserve it, but a man in my line of work took what he could, where he could.
    Maybe one day I would deserve it.
    No, it was a pipe dream and I knew it. There was no future in which I’d ever get to find out. I had to push those wayward ideas out of my head, because they were the road to madness.
    I hadn’t heard anything from Taryn since yesterday, since she went off to the police station, but I’d known full well they’d laugh her out of there. It’s why I’d come back—to talk to her properly.
    But it was difficult to think about talking as I stood by the kitchen island.
    I’d fucked her right here in this room yesterday; the sense-memories of it still making my skin feel hot. It had been incredible, better than when we were younger, and last night I’d fallen asleep thinking about her.
    If it had been purely physical, it would’ve been easy to put her out of my mind, but my thing with Taryn was anything but simple.
    I looked around her kitchen, getting a better read on things than the last frantic time I was here. I hadn’t noticed the childish drawings pinned with magnets to the fridge, nor the A-star report card propped against the toaster. I hadn’t seen the swimming certificate on top of the microwave, not the pink plastic cup with a curly straw on the counter.
    This was my child’s home. Taryn had brought her into this world, raised her to achieve A-star report cards and swim a hundred meters and put colorful rainbows to paper.
    And where had I been? Watching the light go out of men’s eyes as I stood coldly by, clutching a weapon.
    My hands ached, curled involuntarily into fists, and I gently flexed them.
    A morbid curiosity, an almost sadistic need to punish myself, kept me moving through the house, taking in the photographs and toys: a family picture at the beach on Taryn’s mantelpiece, my sister and Ethan in it too; a teddy bear on the sofa that looked washed and rewashed, ragged and well-loved; a CD filled with kiddy pop songs by the player, its surface scratched from use. All of these things were so far removed from my own life they felt almost alien.
    I climbed the stairs and found my daughter’s bedroom, a little decorated plaque stuck to the front of the door: Daisy’s room !
    I couldn’t stop myself from pushing it open. I’d done so much worse, committed crimes in blood and fire, but this, somehow, felt more wrong than any of it.
    This isn’t a place for you, my cruel conscience scolded.
    Daisy’s walls were painted pale pink, the ceiling powder blue and decorated with spongy clouds—Taryn’s doing, no doubt, never hesitant to get stuck in with the DIY.
    The whole room was neatly cluttered with toys and books, a doll house pushed to the corner with a plastic tray of dolls and furniture beside it. Her shelves were stacked with stories and little trinkets, more family photographs in pretty frames.
    I was in none of them. I was in none of this .
    Taryn, her parents, my sister, even