I’d sat with Karly here once on a spring afternoon, holding hands among the honey locust trees and listening to the bubble of water. We were still in our early days then, when we knew we were in love but before we’d shared all our stories. Karly wore a long-sleeve green sweater and a plaid skirt that made her look, to me, like some kind of Irish rebel. A woman for all seasons. Her skin was ivory pale, with a few freckles. Her eyes had a way of changing color with the light, and that day, in the cool April shadows, they were a sad country-song kind of blue. A single brass stud adorned the top of her left ear. Her blond hair, jaggedly chopped off at the shoulders as if she’d done it herself to show the world she could, smelled like a fresh sprig of rosemary.

I remembered that particular day well, because that was when I’d told her what my father had done to my mother. She knew what had happened, of course, but not the details, not what I’d actually seen from the corner of the bedroom. Other than Roscoe, I’d kept that secret to myself. I’d told Karly I had something important that I needed to share with her, and although I didn’t say what, I was sure she’d already guessed. That moment from my childhood was a gaping hole in what she knew about me. Even so, as we sat together by the fountain, I found myself struggling to talk. Somehow, I couldn’t switch on the clickety-clack of my mental projector and go back to when I was thirteen years old, my eyes wide, smelling the smoke and seeing the blood on the floor. There are simply places in your past you don’t want to visit again.

Karly gave me space. She didn’t push me, hoping I’d tell her without prompting. When that didn’t work, she told me one of her own stories to get me started. Most of Karly’s stories had to do with her mother.

“Did I tell you that Susannah’s first business failed?” she said. She always called her mother Susannah, not Mother or Mom. “Before she started Chance Properties, she went bankrupt. Not many people know that.”

“Oh, yes?”

I didn’t know why Karly had chosen that story for that moment, but she always had her reasons.

“Yeah, this was years ago. She and her best friend split from one of the big commercial houses and went off on their own. Small time, just the two of them, but you know Susannah, she had big plans. They were pretty overextended. Her partner—Bren was her name. I liked her a lot. We had a little apartment on Devon back then, and Bren would always bring me takeout from Superdawg when she came over to meet with Susannah.”

“How old were you?” I asked.