They're digging already, outside. Adam isn't interested in chili tonight, it's got onions in it. Like the hot tub, like a million other tiny things she's only now realizing, this is Cathy's fault. He takes so much on faith, he has so much faith in her, that he barely sees her when he looks at her. She is simplified, cartoonish. Her opinions race through his veins whether she agrees with them or not. He reminds her. "We had sushi on vacation. It was awesome." He swings the knife crazily, scaring her: "I am a warrior, this is my weapon. I will teach you many things!" He chops wildly into a carrot and she gasps.

Adam Jamison cuts his finger off, the tip of his finger; danger is a mugger in the house always, now. She goes into action, she speaks in short uncontracted sentences: "Hold this very tight. Very tight. Get into the car. We will go to the hospital." He's nearly caught up in her energy; she nearly makes him forget that it's a game. The very real worry in her scares him and he admits it was just a game; his shaking laughter is relief. Cathy Jamison loves drama; she loves the act of rejecting drama. Cathy Jamison likes to be shocked, because she likes the feeling of putting the genie back in the bottle. Putting the atom back together.

Adam is giving her this feeling, as he's done his whole life, as his father taught him; he is looking for his mother's attention and giving her something to save. But he is crude and young and crass and there is no relief in it. Just a mounting horror in the house that has to do with bodies that he can't see yet but makes him an ally to betrayal. He is crude, and young: Cathy runs out to cry but then runs back again, to ask why he didn't flush the toilet, and if it wouldn't flush, why he didn't plunge it. Cathy's son tells her to plunge it herself and heads away again as the cops pull up outside. Paul isn't in the house, but sometimes it feels like Paul is still in the house. If it felt more like Paul was in the house, Adam wouldn't be so angry.

Cathy Jamison accidentally flashes her breast again, this time at the cops, who ask if this is her house: "No, I live in the next town over. I just like to walk around in my robe." She doesn't have permits for this kind of construction, and someone called them to complain, and Cathy doesn't even really need the cop's head shake in Marlene's direction to know who to blame.