“Oh, yes. I had nine broken bones before I was old enough to order a cocktail. That was when people could order cocktails at eighteen. Then my period was so late. I took a home pregnancy test. Back then it was all test tubes, and you had to wait two hours. While I waited, I smoked. Chain-smoked, even. I’d just lit up a fresh one when I saw that the liquid had turned blue. I dropped the cigarette in the toilet, and I never smoked again. That blue color said the cigarette wouldn’t only hurt me. It would hurt you. So I flushed it, and then I left your father. He was at work. I knew if I didn’t go, he would beat you right out of me, maybe that very night. I could never be sure with him. I put as many of my things as I could carry into a Hefty bag and hitchhiked all the way to Georgia, to my mother’s house. He never let me have a car. I was pretty sure he would come after me and kill me. He’d always said he would, if I left. I slept on her sofa for weeks with a loaded shotgun right by me, hoping I wouldn’t be too scared to use it. What I didn’t know was, he was cheating on me. He was actually glad to have me gone. He moved the other woman right on in. He loved her more than me, I guess. So much more that she was the one he eventually beat to death. That’s why he’s in prison. Do you have any other questions about when you’re going to meet your dad?”

I hadn’t. My mother had never been allowed to tell this story to the girls. I’d forbidden it. He’d died, still in prison, when I was in high school, so he wasn’t real to them. The world he’d created for my mother wasn’t real to them.

But if Mom brought them home, then what had happened to Robert would be real. It would uproot them from that place I saw on Instagram, all innocence and laughter in Mom’s apple-green kitchen, where Peyton grinned with flour dusting her cheek and Anna-Claire proudly lofted a plate of cookies. They had to stay away.

I sent a text to Trey. Tummy flu still raging! Yikes! I’ll call later! I added four heart emojis, but not the four words I most wanted to send him.

What did you do?

I could see the little dots that meant Trey was texting back. I set the phone on the table, facedown. I didn’t want to get into a conversation. I’d have to tell so many lies. My phone buzzed softly against the brass, over and over. Trey was texting up a storm.