There was a scream inside Vera, one that she’d been swallowing since the moment she’d first felt the pop of stitches under her fingers. But if she screamed, Duvall would surely hear it and come running. And besides—more importantly, she insisted to herself—she’d spent too much time screaming since coming home, too much time letting animal fear tenderize her in the night, and she would not do it again. She was standing in a room that was full of daylight, a room that belonged to her, in a house that had been built by her father’s hands for her breath and skin and laughter to fill, and she was
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