“Go wash up,” she told Matilda, putting her hand on the little girl’s back and giving her a push. Matilda turned back once before dropping her coat on the floor and running to the bathroom.

“I said, what’s going on in here?” Barbara’s eyes narrowed, and her chin jutted out as she folded her arms across her chest.

“I know.”

“Excuse me?” Barbara stiffened, as though she had just been told to make her own dinner.

“You heard me.”

Barbara coughed a long, deep, throaty expulsion that made her chest heave up and down.

“I know. All of it. I know you are a liar.”

Barbara came closer. “You better calm yourself or I will tell him and this time he will take care of you. You and your little brat will be gone.” She snapped her fingers and her words bounced off little bursts of spit.

Therese wiped her cheek. “It’s all your fault.”

The only thing she could think about right then was how important it had been to see Leah, to tell her what she had uncovered, and in a flash she saw Lionel.

All of it because of Barbara.

Barbara walked back into the living room, her enormous mass swaying back and forth like a pendulum. For a second, Therese lost her focus, but then it came back, firing through her, catapulting her so that they were again face-to-face.

“From now on, things go the way I say,” Therese said, grabbing her arm.

“Are you crazy?” Barbara asked, panting as she tried to free herself.

“Did you hear me?” she asked. “I know all of it.”

Barbara’s eye twitched. “What are you talking about?”

“Tim’s father.”

Barbara’s cheeks got red and her breath came out in puffs. “You don’t know anything.”

The high pitch of her voice, which now sounded childlike took Therese by surprise. She released Barbara’s arm. “It’s time for us to go. Tim and me and Matilda. We need a home of our own.”

“No.” Barbara shook her head.

Therese leaned in closer. A waft of flowery perfume laced with sweat lifted from the folds of the fat woman’s skin. She breathed in deeply, savoring the moment. “I will tell him. Everything.”

Barbara fell onto the couch like a wounded elephant. As she covered her eyes and began to cry, the room trembled and the windowpanes shook. She rocked back and forth, hitting the edge of the table, sending a second pyramid of plastic red cups cascading down. They bounced and scattered across the wooden floor, and one rolled near Therese. She lifted her foot and smashed it. Soon, she was wiggling and dancing around the room. Matilda watched from the doorway, covering her ears. Therese twirled and stomped, cracking every cup she could find, drowning out the whine of the television, the howl of Barbara’s sobs, until all she could hear was the sound of crushed, fractured plastic.