“I loved you, Shana. Honestly, when I first got your letter, all those years ago . . . It was as if I’d spent twenty years locked in that closet, just waiting for you to open the door. My sister. My family.”

Shana thinned her lips, drumming her fingertips restlessly on the tabletop.

“I told myself I could handle these monthly conversations. I assured myself I had the training necessary to manage a relationship with a convicted killer. But mostly, I wanted to see you. I wanted one hour a month when I could have a sister. We’re the only ones left, you know. Just you and I.”

Shana’s fingertips, drumming faster.

“But we don’t really have a relationship, do we? The bottom line is, you suffer from severe antisocial personality disorder. Meaning I’m not real to you. Nor is Superintendent McKinnon, or any of the corrections officers or your fellow inmates. You will never love me or care about me. Such emotions are as impossible for you as feeling pain is for me. We both have our limitations; it’s time for me to accept that. Good-bye, Shana.”

I pushed back my chair, rose to standing.

And my sister finally spoke, her tone so low, her words sounded more like a growl than a sentence. “You are a fucking idiot!”

I moved toward the interview room door.

“He told me to take care of you! That’s what Daddy said that day. Sirens coming down the street. Daddy, stripping off his clothes, climbing into the bathtub, clutching his goddamn aspirin. And smiling. Fucking smiling as he handed over the razor blade.

“I was scared, Adeline. I was a four-year-old kid and Mom’s crying and people outside are shouting and Daddy’s just smiling, smiling, smiling, except even I knew that wasn’t the right kind of smile on his face.

“‘Take care of your sister,’ he tells me as he climbs into the tub. ‘No matter what happens, you’re her big sister and it’s your job to keep her safe. Take it from me, Shana girl, if you don’t have family in this world, then you got nothing.’ Then he stuck out his arm, and Mom brought down the razor. . . .

“The shouting men heaved a battering ram against our door. Because they’d knocked and rung the bell and screamed at us to open up, but Dad was too busy dying, and Mom was too busy killing him, and I didn’t know what to do, Adeline. I was a scared little kid, and all the grown-ups, the whole world, had gone crazy.