And then there’s the issue of my guilt. Much of what Anne said to Margo applies to me. I haven’t been back to help with Dad. I didn’t help with Mom either. So here we are, my sisters and I, still worlds apart.

The rain has slowed to a tepid mist, but with clouds blocking the moon, it’s dark. I hold Joy’s hand as we run down the stairs, then stop us both. “Maybe you should go back inside with Papa.” I want her with me. But that’s one more bit of selfishness to add to the rest. My sisters are a worry. It could get ugly.

Joy tugs me into motion. “Are you kidding? I started this. I’m in.”

Rounding the side of the house, we run over the wet grass. The potting shed is only a dark blob until a light goes on inside. It is dulled by the dirt on the windows, but first Anne’s, then Margo’s outlines appear. By the time we enter ourselves, Anne is at the far wall, the only one with a double layer, reaching over pots and between tools to pound at planks on either side of the outlet. Squeezing in beside her, Margo flattens a palm on the correct one, angles it in, lifts it out. Her hand is inside before Anne’s can make it. This is atonement for her.

Then she screams and jerks her hand back.

Snake, I think in panic.

“Snake?” Joy yelps.

Margo shakes her head as Anne reaches into the cavity. What she pulls out isn’t a snake. It is dark and small, but it doesn’t wiggle, slither, or coil. That would have been too easy.

Chapter 20

It’s a handgun, but it might have been reptilian from the way Anne holds it at arm’s length.

“Omigod,” Joy breathes.

Margo breathes something less polite.

I am so hit by the implications of a gun existing that I barely breathe at all.

But Anne does—breathes, thinks, acts in ways that suggest she has envisioned this scenario before. Securing her grip on the weapon, she rushes past us out of the shed.

“Stop!” Margo yells.

“Go back to the house, Joy,” I order and take off after Anne. The light escaping the grimy windows of the shed is absorbed in an instant by the murk, but I know the way. She has made a beeline for the beach stairs and is racing down. “No, Anne, wait!” I shout, because I know what she plans, and she shouldn’t, absolutely should not.

The rain has picked up again, thickening the pungent smells of vegetation and marine life, but nothing slows her. Racing across the wet sand and down the sodden dock to its end, she hauls back, puts everything she has into a side-arm swing, and hurls the gun far out to sea.