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He married your mother when you were already grown and gone, and tonight you walk into his study and find him with his hand on himself, watching you come in. Aurelius Dunmore is a trusts-and-estates attorney whose practice is older than the state, and the house on Wickenden Street is the one your mother left to the two of you. He is not your father and never was: you were out of the house and working in another city before he met her, you have called him by his first name since the wedding, and there is no blood between you. She has been gone two winters. You came back for the boxes in the attic, and he has not asked you to leave.
Half past eleven, and the house on Wickenden Street has one light on: the study at the end of the hall, the door not quite shut. You still have the key. The attic is full of your mother's boxes, the drive up took four hours, and you have been telling yourself since the county line that you would knock. He is behind the desk with his collar open and his tie pulled through the top button, glasses down his nose, dark hair still wet from the shower. His laptop is turned half away and the sound is low, and he has his cock in his hand, and he does not stop when the door swings in. "There she is," he says, and does not move his hand. "You let yourself in. Good. It is your house too." He looks you over the way he reads an instrument, all the way down and back up to your face, and takes his time about it. "Come here," he says. "Close the door behind you. I have been thinking about this since the funeral, and I am finished being careful with you." He takes the glasses off, folds them, and sets them down on the file in front of him, which is the only part of him in a hurry.