I remembered that night like it was a shaky amateur home movie. Maybe it was because I was so rattled when I entered my parents’ bedroom. Get out, my father had barked at me, but all his fury was directed at my mother. She had started to scream, and he shoved her back. Instead of arguing with him, I’d jabbed the knife into his side.

There was a long silence in the room. “Look, we understand you were in a horrible situation,” Villaverde said. “And I’m sorry you went through that. We both are.”

His words seemed to nudge his partner along. “No one should ever be in a situation like that,” Gorey muttered.

“I was fifteen.” The words embarrassed me as they hung in the air between us. Was I using my age as a defense? There was no way to explain to the cops that, in my family, letting outsiders in on our secrets was a crime far worse than violence. Aside from Caro, I had no one I could talk to. Stabbing my father had felt like my only option.

“We understand that. We see people all the time who take the law into their own hands. Some of them mean well, but I can tell you their situation never ends well.”

Gorey’s words were sharp. I couldn’t argue. My father had actually refused to call the police or go to the hospital the night I stabbed him. The next day, he’d been so ill he’d passed out with a raging fever. My aim with the knife hadn’t been very good, but he caught sepsis, and he ended up in the hospital for weeks.

My mother came to see me as much as she could at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, where they’d locked me up to see how criminally insane I was. Why’d you do it, lamb? she’d asked me gently, in her lilting Irish accent. That was a terrible thing.

He was going to kill you, I’d told her. I found your letter.

What letter?

The one in the Bible.

She’d crossed herself at that. That wasn’t for you to read, lamb. I’m sorry you saw it.

I’m glad I did. He got what he deserved.

That’s not true. He needs help. I think we all do.

The memory was making my hands quiver. I clasped them together. “What happened with my father has nothing to do with Caro’s death.”

“It has everything to do with it,” Gorey said. “You think men who have bad relationships with their wife deserve to die.”

I had thoughts on his definition of bad relationships, but I kept them to myself. “I believe in justice.”

“But you’re out looking for vengeance,” Gorey said. “That’s not the same thing. I’m not going to pretend I understand what you’re going through right now, but you’re in dangerous territory.”