The storm had n't stopped for two nights, and in that endless marshland of rain, Claire felt the house changing around her. It was n't the egregious effects — the creaking boards or the jouncing windows — that unnerved her now. It was the way the air sounded to shift with purpose, the way silence now had weight, the way commodity unnoticeable understood she was alone again. Henry had gone into city to bring back inventories,