We perched on the L-shaped sofa. I sipped my water and felt the ceiling fan brush freshly chilled air across my cheeks. Aunt Helen didn’t speak right away. Her hands were trembling on her glass. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, but gazed at the floor.

This time of year always hit her harder than it did me. Maybe because she gave herself the permission to grieve, to release the floodgates one week out of every year. She cried, raged, blew off steam. Then she picked up the pieces and returned to the business of living.

I couldn’t do it. Never could. I didn’t want to release the floodgates; I was afraid I’d never get them closed again. Plus, all these years later, I remained mostly angry. Deeply, deeply enraged. Which was why I rarely visited my aunt around the anniversary. It was too hard for me to watch her weep, when I wanted to shatter everything in her house.

My visit today had probably surprised her. She twisted her water glass between her fingers, waiting for me to speak.

“Doing okay?” I asked at last. Stupid question.

“You know,” she replied with a small shrug. Better answer. I did know.

I cleared my throat, looked out the sunny bank of windows. Unexpectedly, my eyes stung and I fought through the choke hold of strangling emotion.

“Something’s happened,” I managed at last.

She stopped fiddling with her water glass and studied me. And suddenly, I was staring at my mother’s blue eyes. I was standing in the doorway of my mother’s bedroom, holding my father’s gun behind my back, while I tried to muster the courage for what I needed to say next.

“He hurt me,” I heard myself whisper.

“Danielle?” My aunt’s voice, my mother’s voice. They ran together, two women, both who’d claimed to love me.

I licked my lips, forced myself to keep talking. “My father. On the nights when he drank a lot … sometimes he came to my room in the middle of the night.”

“Oh Danielle.”

“He said if I did what he wanted, he wouldn’t have to drink so much. He’d be happy. Our family would be happy.”

“Oh Danielle.”

“I tried, in the beginning. I thought, if I just made him happy, I wouldn’t have to hear my mom cry at night. Things would get better. Everything would be all right.”

My aunt didn’t speak, just regarded me with my mother’s sorrowful blue eyes.

“But it got worse. And he drank more, came in more often. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t take it. I went to Mom’s room that night. To tell her what he was doing. And I brought his gun with me.”

“You threatened Jenny?” my aunt asked in confusion. “You were going to shoot your mother?”