I’m trying my best, but she’s not making it easy. Just like when we were kids and she’d lie outright to Dad and expect me to cover for her.

She puts her hand on my knee, leaves it there, still not speaking. But the breath she takes next is tremulous.

“It wasn’t me,” she says. “The trouble I was in—it wasn’t my fault.”

I bite the inside of my lip and say nothing. How strange it is to have the same conversation again and again with her. It wasn’t me. That isn’t mine. I didn’t do it. Perhaps the only thing that’s changed as we’ve grown up is that the stakes got higher.

“It was all Hal.”

His name sends a cold spear through the very center of my throat.

“He was mixed up in drugs—you know that already. He wasn’t a very good guy.” She pauses as if this last statement is revelatory.

“You knew that before you left with him.”

“I had nowhere else to go. I did what I had to. I survived. It’s no different from anything you’re doing.”

I look at her sharply, at those stupid doves circling the darkness of her head.

“Hal Nightingale might not have been right for me, Alex, but he was my only escape hatch.”

“Hal Nightingale tore our family apart.”

“We were already torn. And you know it.”

I feel sick, like I always do when thinking of that time. I press down the memories that threaten to emerge and try to focus on Ruth. “Why did you go to jail? What did you do?”

“Hal got caught dealing drugs, and I was with him. Well, I was in the car sleeping.”

“You were outside asleep in his car?” She’s always had her way with the truth. I can never be sure if the version of events I’m getting is the real one.

“I was high. Okay—there—I said it. I was high, and I was sleeping it off. When the police hauled us in, I was groggy, but I wouldn’t tell them anything. I wouldn’t do that to Hal. But next door, he was telling them all kinds of things, blaming everything on me. I served one year. Hal got off with a warning. I thought he’d be waiting for me, but when I got out, he was gone. I never saw him again.”

“Really? This was how long ago?”

“Five years. That’s why I couldn’t come to Dad’s funeral. And before that, I was in the thick of my mess—I didn’t even know Mom had died. I’ll regret that forever.” A tear slips down her cheek.

Is this the truth? It’s hard to tell. And yet despite my better judgment, I’m beginning to believe her. What possible reason could she have to lie now?