There was a photo on the postcard of people enjoying a summer day at a swampy lake—a woman with a white parasol, a boy in overalls, a girl in a pink swimsuit. The words Welcome to LOST LAKE Georgia were written on it. It was an old photo, but Eby had the strangest feeling looking at it. Like she was seeing her future, which was silly. She couldn’t go there. She didn’t have the strength to leave, knowing she had to come back. “Lisette would like this,” she said sadly. “Someplace warm.”

He kissed her neck gently, as if she would break. No one had ever thought Eby was delicate before. Only George. “You need a drink.”

He disappeared around the corner into the dining room. Eby stood in the open foyer and looked around. The house was immaculate but decorated all wrong. It wasn’t at all how Eby had imagined it. This was how Marilee wanted it. That damn dresser wasn’t even supposed to go upstairs. Eby had intended for it to go here in the foyer, with a nice mirror above it. She had imagined the sound of her keys as she tossed them there every time she walked inside, a pleasant clink against the marble.

She staggered to the staircase and sat down. She put her head in her lap, exhausted. She had woken up several times the past few nights, wondering where she was. Paris? Amsterdam? And where was George? In those few frightening moments before she remembered, she thought she might have an inkling of what her sister might be going through, and it made dealing with Marilee in her present state of mind a little easier.

Sitting there, nodding off, Eby wondered if there was a form of mental illness that wasn’t biological but learned. Eby could remember her own mother on a downward spiral after her husband died. And even now, their mother was feeding Marilee’s beautiful grief with outrage of her own that Eby had stayed away so long. They were wounded. They were victims. If only they had everything they’d ever wanted, then they’d be okay. But because they didn’t, it was everyone else’s fault.

It was suddenly too overwhelming to think of what it was going to take to make them happy. She loved little Quinn so much, but the child looked at her with such fear now. Who does that to a child? Who chooses this over happiness? She missed Europe. She missed how hopeful she was there. She missed the comfort of Lisette. Already this was too hard. Already her family was controlling things and spending George’s money.

There was a knock at the door, and Eby’s head shot up.