Lonely after work, I listened for the stray sounds of my neighbors—bumps, the sound of a tap turning on, the comforting muffled hum of a television, a blow dryer, a coffee grinder. The old plaster walls were thick and I rarely heard anything coming from inside the building except mice skittering in the walls and, in the hallway, footsteps—the clicking of heels. Lying in bed at night, I counted the steps, trying to figure out which apartment those heels led to, measuring my own steps later, but it never quite added up right. Whoever owned those heels had a gait much different from my own.

The footsteps reminded me of when I was a very small child and my mom worked nights at a diner. That was before she got the teaching job, long before the divorce. In our little house I’d hear the thuds of her shoes on the porch at two A.M. and creep out of my room, desperate for a glimpse of her. I understand now, from watching William, how she must have felt to see a child awake when she shouldn’t be. She must have been exhausted. She’d shoo me back into my room without comfort, despite my tears.

One night, though, she waved me over when I opened my door and mumbled, “I can’t sleep.” My usual line. My dad was in their bedroom, likely passed out in front of the television on their dresser. I could hear the sound of commercials drifting down the hall.

“Want some?” my mom said. She was bent over the kitchen counter, wearing her baby-blue work blouse with a pair of my dad’s boxer shorts, eating fries from a Styrofoam take-out container. She’d already washed her face and I loved the way it looked without all her usual makeup. She had a beautiful peachy-cream complexion.

I doused a fry in ketchup and placed it on my tongue, relishing the sour-saltiness. They were still hot. She lifted my little body onto the counter next to her and together we devoured the whole container of fries, one crispy morsel at a time. They were the best fries I’d ever eat—before or since.

“Middle of the night food,” she said. “It’s a secret. It always tastes best.”

UNABLE TO SLEEP, I CURLED UP ON THE LOVESEAT IN SAM’S room and searched the Internet for anything about “Rev.” LeRoi. The cop had been right about the details: he’d had a host of “nuns” who spent their days on the streets begging for money for the church, and supposedly brought in a significant income—enough to purchase sixty acres upstate, which LeRoi claimed to use as a camp for orphans. It also happened to be where he chopped up the bodies of the “nuns” who wanted out—“nuns” who were murdered while the rest of the women sang hymns to cover up the sounds of the screams.