“But my mom and I never stopped talking. She didn’t tell me Caro lived with anyone!” Even more than I was shocked, I was hurt. When I’d stopped living with my family, it wasn’t exactly voluntary—I’d ended up in the not-so-tender care of the juvenile detention system at fifteen. After months of legal drama and multiple psychiatric evaluations, I’d been released to my parents’ care. But I couldn’t live with them again, which is how I wound up, like a stray animal, at Reagan’s house. I talked with my mom every week—and saw her every month—but she was the only family member I had a relationship with. It wasn’t until my mom was diagnosed with cancer that my sister came back into my life. There had been four long years of silence between us, and while we picked up where we left off—sort of—we never addressed what had happened. I was nineteen then and Caro twenty-four, and we were both immature enough to pretend it was water under the bridge.

“I don’t know anything about Ben,” I said, thinking of how he hadn’t answered my email. “Caro was already dating Theo when we reconnected. Tell me about him.”

“They met in journalism school,” Jude said.

“They graduated together?”

Jude laughed. “No. He was a guest speaker. He’d graduated a decade earlier.”

“Oh.”

“They were close, but he wasn’t really The One,” Jude said. “He was this fearless reporter who would drop everything to fly to Bogotá just to talk with a source. Caroline said once that she wasn’t sure if she was in love with him, or if she wanted to be him.”

“Caro was a hearts-and-flowers kind of person. You’re making her sound cynical.”

“She was,” Jude said. “I mean, Theo definitely swept her off her feet, but that was the first time I ever knew her to be head over heels about someone. And it didn’t last.”

I thought about that and realized Jude was right. Caro had always regarded relationships with a jaundiced eye. More fallout from our parents’ disastrous marriage, even if she’d refused to admit it.

“Did Caro tell you she was seeing Ben again?”

“She told me when they reconnected. That was six months ago. But until . . .” She stopped speaking for a moment. “Three weeks ago, Caroline wanted to drop off my birthday gift. I told her I was going to bed, but she said she was practically in my neighborhood already. You know I live by the Midtown Tunnel, right? When she came over, she said she’d been at Ben’s. He’s living in his parents’ old pied-à-terre in Tudor City.”