Violet, I need you to take care of your sister. You’re the strong one, much stronger than I’ve ever been, and she’s going to need you. I’m sorry to put this on your shoulders, but I trust you and I love you. Remember your promise.

Violet’s fingers squeezed of their own accord, crumpling her mom’s note in her hand. She could throw it away. Both of them. Maybe drop them in the river where they’d drift out into the Gulf, as if the words had never even been a thought, much less a request.

She was halfway down the hall toward the back door before she stopped. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t throw the notes away, couldn’t pretend like her mom hadn’t asked such a monumental thing of her. For better or worse, Deena Figg had decided leaving was better than staying, and if she needed Violet to take care of Trudy, then that’s what Violet would do.

She never knew there was a physical sensation when dreams died, but she felt it. All those hopes she had for herself—going places, doing things, becoming someone—peeled off her and dissipated in the stale air of the quiet house. She wasn’t going anywhere, for she was Trudy’s keeper now. She’d never be free.

* * *

Without realizing it Violet had moved across the grass toward the water, and her feet were now inches away from where the river whispered against the sandy shore. She curled her toes and was surprised to feel the cool sand of the riverbank rather than the worn shag carpet of her childhood home.

Sometimes Violet wondered how good a job she’d done in taking care of Trudy. On her good days she was content in the knowledge that her sister was happy, fulfilled by her art and her daily scavenging trips, and perfectly fine in her cocoon of soft silence, that night safely buried in the past. She could tell herself she’d fulfilled her mother’s request and taken care of her younger sister.

But on days like today, when the past bumped up against her, it reminded Violet it was never really gone. Could she have done more to protect Trudy, to shield her, to cushion her from the blows?

From behind her came the trill of a robin, and its cheerful song pulled her from her reverie. As she reached down to brush off a piece of grass that clung to her ankle, she saw it. The bones. The size of a matchbox and aglow as if touched by the morning sun, which hadn’t yet risen above the tree line.

She swiveled her head, checking the shore and the lawn behind her, the shade under the trees and her back porch overlooking it all, but other than the birds, she was alone. Her heart beat fast and angry in her chest.

With trembling fingers she lifted the fish bones, and they sat cold in her palm, heavier than they should have been. With a swift stretch of her arm and a flick of her wrist, Violet flung them out into the river, so hard her muscles burned. Though the bones didn’t come anywhere near the pelican sitting out in the middle, it took flight anyway, its wings a brown blur as the bones sank slowly under a ripe-peach sky.