Like how, growing up, Mom was always warning us to “be careful with boys” to a point that seemed old-fashioned and excessive. Now I know where the paranoia came from—Mom thinking Abigail’s fate might be the same as Lorna’s.

Or like Abigail’s looks—how as a kid when plundering old photo albums, we landed on a childhood picture of Dad with his siblings , and Abigail brought it in to Dad to demand who the girl in the photograph was. The girl who looked so like her.

Oliver gets up, fills a glass of water from the tap, and comes back, pushing it across the table to me. Concern flashes in his eyes.

The water tastes cold and strange. I wonder at what point this truth will start to settle; when my brain will stop firing these strange semaphores into my nervous system, making everything feel unreal.

“When did she call you?” I say. “When did she tell you all this?”

Mom hesitates.

“This morning. Early. I think after you texted her about Sam…” Mom swallows; obviously the prospect of her grandson having OCD is painful for her too. “She’s ready to come home,” she adds.

I close my eyes, giving a split-second rest to my brain.

“What about Dennis?” I say. “Has she told him?”

Mom nods. “She was going to call him next. He knows by now.”

I stare out the window at the white, blameless snow.

“She told no one,” I say. “Not even him. She just left.”

Mom nods slowly. “I think she was angry at all of us, Gillian. All of us but Sam.”

I breathe it in. So now I know.

Lorna—my dad’s sister, my estranged aunt…my sister’s birth mother. She lives in Miami. And that’s where Abigail is now.

Mom glances back down at her coffee. There’s something about the gesture, something about her eyes, about her face.

“What is it?” I say, my voice sharp. “Mom, what is it?”

Mom hesitates, and looks up.

“Lorna’s….she’s…”

I wait.

“She’s sick,” Mom says.

Sick. I hear the way she says it.

“Is she dying?” I ask, in a voice that even to my ears sounds small and faint.

Mom blinks at me, then sort of shrugs.

“She had—has—a tumor in her liver. She, well…” Mom looks at me. “She used to be an alcoholic. Her liver was compromised. The surgery was a few days ago. It sounds like they didn’t quite get it all.”

Oliver shoots a shocked glance my way.

“There’s still a lot they can do,” Mom says. “But the prognosis is unclear. It’s a question of how much time she has left. Whether it’s years, or…” She swallows. “Or a lot less.”

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

Unthinkable.

For my sister to discover this person and then, discovering them, to know they’re not long for this world….