She walked into Claire’s room, the turret bedroom that had once been their grandmother’s. Grandma Waverley had covered the walls with her quilt hangings, but Claire had replaced them with framed black-and-white photos and a couple of old family prints. The walls were pastel yellow and the floors were covered with calico-colored throw rugs. Sydney’s eyes went right away to the place where Claire obviously spent most of her time in the room, the comfortable window seat. There were stacks of books on the floor beside it.

Sydney went to the bed and looped her arm around one of the bottom posts. “I need to tell you something.”

Claire sat up on her pillows.

“About the past ten years.”

“Okay,” Claire said quietly.

There had been a chance, on the quilts at the beach, to tell Claire this, but she hadn’t been able to do it. She didn’t know it then, but she was waiting for night, because it was the sort of thing that needed darkness to tell. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind now that Claire would understand. And she owed it to Claire to tell her. David wasn’t going away. “I went to New York first, you know that. But after that, it was Chicago. Then San Francisco, Vegas…then Seattle. I’ve known a lot of men. And I did a lot of stealing. I changed my name to Cindy Watkins, an identity I stole.”

“Mom did that too,” Claire said.