Their mother stood up, her face blank with shock. She smoothed the wrinkles from her black pencil skirt and without saying a word grabbed her alligator Birkin bag off the table in the foyer and walked out the front door, closing it behind her.

Anna looked at her brother in wide-eyed amazement. “What the holy hell just happened?”

Steven sat down on the couch next to his sister and just shook his head. He opened his mouth but before he could speak, his phone started buzzing in rapid-fire succession.

Steven pulled his phone out of his pocket and answered. “Oh my god,” he muttered. “When?”

“What happened? Who is it?” Anna grabbed Steven’s arm. “Tell me.” Even though she was currently pissed at Vronsky, the thought of something bad happening to him filled her with terror.

“I’ll call you right back.” Steven hung up and sat back down on the couch again.

“You’re scaring me, Steven!” Anna cried. “What happened?

“Dustin’s brother, Nicholas…” Steven said blankly. “Heroin overdose. He’s dead.”

XV

Dustin didn’t have a black suit to wear to his brother’s funeral, so Steven and Anna took him to Goodman’s Men’s and bought him one. Dustin stared at himself in the three-way mirror wearing the black Theory suit and gray shirt that Steven had picked out for him. Over his shoulder in the reflection, he saw Anna and Steven standing in the doorway behind him, each of them holding a different dark tie option. Seeing the brother and sister standing together cemented his cold new reality, and he started to sob.

Two days later the funeral was held in the same temple where Dustin and Nicholas had been bar mitzvah’d and the place was again packed. Dustin was not a fan of public speaking, but on the morning of the service he told his parents that he wanted to say a few words. His father said he didn’t have to, but Dustin insisted.

Staring out at the sea of black-clad mourners, Dustin took a moment before he began his speech. This wasn’t because of his grief, though he was chock full of it, this was because he’d spotted Kimmie in the crowd sitting next to Lolly, who was sitting next to Steven and Anna. And even though Kimmie looked pale and sad and had this crazy, wild, purple hair, and even though his brother had overdosed three days ago and would be gone forever, his heart still skipped a beat for Kimmie.