During my time staying with them, there were nights when Elizabeth would work herself up over something or other while Don and I chuckled into our beers, sharing knowing glances over the tops of the bottles, until she managed to get Don sufficiently worked up himself that he lashed out with twice the cruelty. Once, he even broke his bottle against the wall. I can’t remember why. Then he was yelling and she was crying, and nobody wanted to clean up the broken glass or the foamy puddle. When I bent down to pick up the pieces, they both shouted at me to stop, to stay out of their business, so I waited until they stormed off to bed to clean it up.

Then I would move restlessly about the house, peering out of windows, nervously checking the locks, too keyed up to sleep, until dawn peeked in through the curtains and I passed out on the couch. Having requested a substitute at the college for the remainder of the semester and relieved myself of my classes, unable to handle them in my state of constant nervousness, I would spend the days tidying up their house, thinking I was helping, until Don came home frazzled and told me I had organized the DVDs all wrong, and that he ought to work from home full-time, if only to stop me from changing over the whole house from the way he liked it.

There is something dawning in my brain, that whisper of revelation I have sometimes upon revisiting memories. What if it was him all along, and I just had it backward? What if it was him who started all the riling up, subtly goading Elizabeth until he had an excuse to boil his long-simmering temper, kept carefully at bay? The thought makes me ill with its ring of truth, and I find myself looking at my sister sideways, with new eyes.

On second thought, I decide I do not owe Don any condolences. I am still holding out the phone to Elizabeth when she finally snaps it from me and disconnects the call without a word.

“What did he do?” I ask her, thinking of broken bottles, of angry voices.

She makes a show of setting down her phone very precisely beside her, checking the screen for missed communications, and says at last, “Are you going to help me with this crib, or not?”

We ponder the instructions for several minutes until I lament, “Remember the days when instructions used to come with words?”

“Oh, but the pictures are so much easier,” she says, pointing. “See? Fit slot A into B using the F screws.”

“No, that must be the textbook from high school sex ed.”

“If it were, it would say don’t first.”

So it goes that Elizabeth deciphers the hieroglyphics on the page while I sit on the floor screwing pieces of wood together with great care and concentration, working slowly and deliberately. I may even reluctantly mention that we make a good team, with her ability to understand the instructions and my ability to construct the furniture.