She slowed and quieted her steps so no one would know that she was coming down the stairs. Though they were talking softly, one voice was unmistakably her husband's. For nineteen years before she ran away she lived with the man. She could pick out his familiar cadence in a large crowd. Carefully descending the stairs, she had to step over the board that creaked. In the back of her mind she thought it interesting how time away and her ever-more frequent periods of confusion didn't seem to affect how well she knew her own home.