She said, “Soon,” but it was months before he came over for dinner, and by then, our parents had poisoned my opinion with their criticism. I thought it was in service of love, the way I tolerated and even indulged Mother and Daddy’s disapproval. It felt noble, this skepticism I adopted, this loyalty to their judgment. I offered blind faith for no better reason than because they’d had sex and made me. Now I have no way of trusting whether the thing I call love isn’t hate in disguise.

I’ve spent years trying to figure out why our parents’ venom was so potent. My best guess is that Mother and Daddy weren’t shielding Becca so much as themselves. If they’d accepted Marco as good enough for Becca, it would’ve meant Becca wasn’t as special as they believed—or worse, that their assessment of Marco had been wrong, and they hated being wrong.

But I was shielding myself, too, because if I’d accepted that my parents were wrong, I would’ve realized they didn’t know what was best for us, and if they didn’t know best, then no one had the answers. I wasn’t ready to be that alone.

How unbearable the world must have been for Nick. Why didn’t he come home? He didn’t even call to say good-bye. How angry and alone he must have felt.

How selfish and stupid I must have been, believing he was doing so much better.

So now I’m wondering: Why didn’t he call Hank or the boys on that list? It is peculiar. Hank is right about that.

But wondering can make a person crazy, and I can’t afford to lose my mind on top of all these other losses. It would be a shame to go mad analyzing and overanalyzing Hank’s questions, spinning them into theories, hunting for blame, feeding my hate, searching for clues that will be revealed in the coroner’s report soon enough, anyway. Let the experts do their jobs, Naomi. They’re authorities. They’re the law.

Laws and rules and systems. Precautions, protections. Ever since we were little: be good girls, listen to Mother and Daddy, marry nice boys, obey the law. Trust the men in charge for no other reason than because they’re in charge. Trust your parents because they made you. Trust that the Universe has a Plan. Trick yourself into believing that a plan makes things better, that these laws, rules, and systems serve the Plan, which we’ll never understand, so don’t bother asking questions. It’s a mystery, isn’t that marvelous? Don’t spend much time wondering, or you might go mad.