But he didn’t stop. “And you loved your life. You loved school and running and your friends . . .” He was crying and laughing now, at the same time. “I used to get so worried about all you girls, meeting up with boys at the mall, and now . . . Oh God, Nic . . . now I would give anything to be worried about you having fun with your friends. I would give anything to see you go to college, or just to see you smile again, not back in Hastings chasing after dead ends.”

He was full on now, crying into the phone, making her cry.

“Dad . . .” She didn’t know what to say to him. How to make this better for him. It was hard enough to get through each day herself. She couldn’t carry her father’s anguish as well.

“I know I’m not supposed to say these things to you,” he said, catching his breath. “They told me not to, that it would make you feel worse. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I just need you to know that even if you don’t remember what it felt like when you were happy, that I do. I do! And I will hold those memories until you’re ready to take them back. Until you’re done running away—and that’s all this is, looking for your mother when she doesn’t want to be found.”

The therapy speak was unbearable. She recognized every theme—the holding of memories, the holding of feelings, the running away. Each of them was another layer of total shit, wrapped around her and Evan and their father, keeping them from crashing into one another. Keeping them cocooned and preserved, until—what, exactly? He had a whole box of this shit. These layers and layers of shit.

“I’m not running away . . .”

“Your mother wasn’t happy.” He said this like it was some kind of revelation.

“I know that.”

“Do you? Do you know how unhappy she was? She was in agony. Unrelenting agony.”

I know.

“I know, Dad.”

“And that agony was spreading into all of us. Into you, especially. It was so hard to watch . . .”

“Dad—stop!” What was he even saying right now? He kept going.

“And I know you blame yourself for that day, for not bringing your sister to her playdate and not answering your phone—but it was your mother behind the wheel . . .”

Nic closed her eyes, listening carefully to words that somehow had a harsher tone this time.

“ . . . it was your mother who was left to wonder about how fast she hit the brakes and turned the wheel, and whether she was driving as slow as she could have, knowing you kids were home alone and hearing the ice cream truck . . . you were a teenager, Nic. A busy teenager and it wasn’t your job to babysit your sister. That’s how she saw it. And she knew what other people thought about her.”