From her room at the top of the stairs, Margaret listens to the man come and go, to the sound of his leather-soled shoes on the wooden stairs, the gentle hum of his voice through the floorboards. She waits, waking from dreams of rising tides, and she waits.  Until the final evening: the slap of his hand against the door, the small squeak as it opens. The man clutching at his stomach, a thing trail of blood leaking through his fingers. “We met seven years ago,” he says, on his knees now. “But you don’t remember me, do you?”