My mother held out her glass, taunting. “Go on, then. Give it a taste so we can see if this is the hobby for you.”

Elizabeth knew better than to take the glass, but she didn’t know better than to knock it out of Mother’s hand, where it thudded and spilled its contents over the floor, the room erupting in the acrid smell of alcohol.

It reminds me now of August Wakefield knocking the cup of tarry water out of his sister’s hands, letting the floorboards drink the dark elixir. Elizabeth had the same cold look on her face when she knocked the glass to the floor.

The sound of a slap left a bright handprint on Elizabeth’s cheek. She and my mother both looked momentarily stunned, and then Elizabeth shouted, “I hate you!” She swiveled but my mother reached out, grabbed her arms as she thrashed away, and held her fast, making crude attempts at apologies. Elizabeth struggled, shouting, “I hate you! I hate you!” through her tears.

They were retreating from me now—but it was only because I was backing away from the room, away from the shouting, my hands over my ears. I told myself I could not hear them. I closed my eyes so I could not see them either, but I nearly tripped over one of the knotted strings cast onto the floor, tied like a soft pretzel. I stumbled over it, and it sprang free of the careless knot until it was once again a curved line, dented periodically from years of pressing into frets. I picked it up and carried it with me to my hiding place.

I was there for hours, hiding among the white-sheeted shapes of old furniture, playing with the steel string. Beyond the arched window the sun set, plunged me into nightfall. No one came to find me. No one called me down for dinner. My stomach grumbled, and I crawled out from under a sheet covering an old piano, accidentally taking it with me in a plume of dust. The ancient piano with its yellowing keys grinned back as the falling sheet plinked out a few sour notes.

Worried that Mother had heard—that she would come yell at me for my music, too—I threw the sheet back over the piano and crept out of the room, peering around for any sign of her. The hall was dark with dusk.

No one was in the kitchen. I was hungry, but I didn’t know how to cook anything, not really, so I went looking in my mother’s favorite drinking spots. In the lightless parlor, I saw someone sitting on a chair against the far wall. “Mother?” I called out. “I’m hungry. Can we eat now?”

She didn’t respond.

“Please?” I stumbled around, feeling the wall. “Can you turn on the light?”

She was laughing low, in the back of her throat, a terrible old chuckle, and suddenly I thought, this is not my mother.

Instead of searching for the light switch, I fell back against a curtain and dragged it open, filling the room with uneasy twilight.