“We can talk right now if you’re in crisis,” she said. “Are you okay, Theo?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. The truth was, I never felt like I had any privacy in a building owned by my family. The town house had been a wedding gift to us, but my father’s name was still on the ownership papers. He wasn’t the relative I was worried about at that moment; that honor went to my sister, who had always been ready to stab me through the heart. When Ursula said there was only one person who hated me enough to reveal my past to Caroline, Juliet was who she meant. “But if you have any open appointments tomorrow . . .”

“You could come by at eleven, but I only have half an hour,” she said.

“I’ll take it. Thank you.”

I’d seen various psychologists and psychiatrists at my father’s insistence when I was young, but I quickly realized they all reported back to my family. My sister delighted in mocking me, emailing therapy suggestions to help me over what she described as my pathological fear of animals. I hadn’t set foot in a zoo since I was three, and unfortunately my son was obsessed with them. I’d found Dr. Haven on my own, and she was my secret. But the therapy I was working on with her was not at all what Juliet was suggesting.

I heard a dull thud, and I leaped up. The sound had come from Teddy’s room. I hurried up the hall and opened the door.

My heart skipped a beat, because Teddy wasn’t in bed.

I turned on the light, and there was a squawk from the other side of his room. Teddy and his accomplice, Bunny, were sitting in front of his bookcase.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You’re supposed to be in bed.”

Teddy pulled Bunny closer. “Nothing.”

He had several large storybooks pulled out and strewn around the floor. He was holding something in his hand but shielding it from my sight.

“Teddy, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he repeated.

“It doesn’t look like nothing. What are you holding there?”

“Can’t tell you,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Mama said it’s secret.”

I came closer. “That’s changed now, Teddy. Mama’s gone, so you can tell me everything.”

Teddy’s eyes were big as quarters, and he gazed at me pleadingly. “But when she comes back?”

I sat on the rug beside him. “I wish she would. But she’s not going to, Teddy. It’s just us now.”

He was hugging something to his chest.

“Can I see that?” I asked.

He allowed me to take it from him. It was a heart-shaped gold locket. Inside was an adorable childhood photograph of Caroline and her sister.

“It’s a picture of Mama,” he said softly. “With Auntie Dee. They’re just little.”