All of this would be a lot easier, Brendan thought, if Tommy weren't so damn difficult to read. Already there was enough he couldn't make sense of, but he didn't know where they stood, either, or just how bad a thing it was that they were apparently going to be living in the same building. It didn't have to mean much either way — he'd lived in apartments before, and being close to other tenants was hardly a requirement — but he wanted things to be okay, wanted his girls to have an uncle, especially without their mother here. He just didn't know, even now, if that was possible, if the two of them would ever really be okay again.

"And you don't know how any of this happens," he said as he got into the cab, Emily on one side of him, Rosie on the other, the words half a question despite the obvious answer. "The IDs, the apartment assignments, it's all just… out of thin air?" It seemed a little too perfect for that, but maybe that was the point.