Next to me, Ellen was still bent over, the bumpy bones of her spine visible beneath her school pinafore. “A little sprite,” my aunt Rosie had said when she came from Ireland for my dad’s funeral. She’d sent us food packages and at Christmas a bottle of sherry to improve Ellen’s appetite. She said she, “wasn’t thriving,” a turn of phrase that had made us all laugh, as if she were talking about a farm animal. But she was right, Ellen was small. At twelve years old, she was just over four feet and only sixty-some pounds. Looking at her now, I thought she seemed so tiny and unhappy, and I tried to pat her back.

“Get off,” she muttered and shoving me off she banged the back of the driver’s seat.

My mom swerved the car toward the verge and back onto the road again, exaggerating the power of Ellen’s knock against her seat. “You could kill us doing that. Do you understand? That’s enough. You can vacuum the downstairs when you get home, and fold the laundry.”

“No. I won’t,” Ellen said. “You should make Beatrice do something for once.”

“Leave Beatrice out of this. I’ve had enough.” I could see my mother’s large hair bun and just one eye in the rearview mirror as she looked back for Ellen.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind doing it.” Beatrice leaned forward from the wayback, fretting that she was somehow the cause of what was happening.

“Thank you, Beatrice. If only Ellen could be sweet to others.”

“You hate all of us, and you just love her. And your fat boyfriend.” Ellen was going too far. I elbowed her to make her stop.

“One more word, and you’ll walk.”

“It’s true. You hate us!” Ellen was shouting. “You hated Dad, and I hate you.”

His name in the car punched the air out of us. We didn’t talk about him in front of my mother. The car skidded onto the shoulder, right where 252 crossed the turnpike.

“Out. Get out.” My mom said it with her voice low, which let us know she meant it. Ellen reached across Thomas, opened the back door, and started to climb out.

“You can’t leave her out here,” Marie said. “It’s getting dark. I’m going with her.” She started to gather her school bag from the floor of the front.

“You’ll do no such thing.”

“Wait,” said Thomas. He looked stricken, blaming himself for the teasing. Ellen was standing on the gravel verge of the overpass in her school pinafore, tennis shirt, and knee socks. Marie was opening her door when my mother threw the car into gear and accelerated forward.

I looked back. Ellen was facing away from us, looking down over the bridge, where columns of cars funneled along the turnpike.