Her mother shifted slightly in her wheelchair, and Eileen checked on her from the corner of her eye, nervous about disturbing the quiet, blank expression Ella currently wore. She had seen firsthand just how distraught her mother could become when she was confused. But Ella only stared straight ahead at the sleek mahogany casket and the six poster-sized glossy photos of Clare throughout her life, as if she were attending the funeral of a stranger.

One of the photos was Clare’s senior class picture—the picture Eileen had taken of her reaching up to touch Prometheus’s flame outside the Natrona County Library.

After hearing Donna’s theory about Clare’s work, Eileen had spent the rest of the day and into the night up in her guest room reading A Perfect Life from cover to cover. When she’d finished that last sentence just before midnight, it was impossible not to believe that Donna was right. To Eileen, who had grown up with Clare, it read like a thinly veiled memoir. Only in this version of Clare’s life, Adam survived their car accident. He married Clare right out of high school, eventually became disillusioned with her, cheated on her, and was about to leave her—until she killed him, and then herself.

It was dark and sad, full of complexity and depth, and very, very different from any other book of Clare’s Eileen had ever read. It was not at all surprising that many of her most devoted fans disliked it. If Donna’s assumption was correct, and Clare had been using her fiction to create one fantasy life after another for her and Adam, this one stripped all the romance and illusion off the page and left readers with a clear sightline of two flawed characters navigating a failing marriage under a florescent glare of reality.

Many of her readers called it depressing.

Donna had labeled it a worthy and triumphant accomplishment.

Eileen thought both were equally true.

Ella squirmed again in her seat, and Eileen turned toward her, wondering if maybe her slouch was growing uncomfortable in her wheeled perch. She was surprised to find her mother sitting erect, staring straight ahead at the mourners lined up and passing by Clare’s casket. Ella narrowed her eyes.

A single pearl of sweat ran down Eileen’s back. She felt it coming, like a shift in the atmosphere around Ella, her confusion coalescing into a narrowed, focused misunderstanding of what her eyes were seeing. She had her feet planted on the grass and stood up from her chair with a strength and speed Eileen would never have bet on.

“Mom,” she hissed, reaching her arm behind her to signal the nurse for help.