“I’m just here to explain myself, Suzy. I know you were the one who called Caleb. I know you blocked my number. I know what you think you saw, and I wanted to explain that it was all a big misunderstanding.” She sips from her mug, clinking the spoon against the porcelain. I grimace at the sound.

“You’re a liar, Anneliese. I know it, and you know it. I read the letter you left for my father all those years ago. I know all about who you are, and I don’t like it.” I take a breath. Close my eyes and open them, bite the inside of my cheeks as I feel a telltale prick behind my eyes again. “Do you know what you did to my dad? You broke him. He lived his entire life in fear. I had so much resentment for how he parented me, how much he smothered me. And it was all your fault. You made him that way, you sick freak.” She flinches.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot another landline in an old-fashioned cradle on the far side of the room. “I’m ashamed of the time we spent together. You took advantage of me when I was at my most vulnerable, cut me off from everyone who actually cared, made me feel like you were the only person who understood me. And the entire time you secretly were hurting me, making me complicit in the mistreatment of the kids.” I’m mimicking the words Dr. Ihm has said time and time again, lines in a play that I didn’t write. And it feels good, letting it all slither out like this, facing the beast, even if, in the deepest wells of myself, I don’t mean all of it.

I expect Anneliese to falter, to at least lose her bearings a little. But she has the same serene expression she’s worn since I entered the room.

“You’re right. That was a mistake, what I did to you and your father. I apologized to him. But you must know, I would never put you in any danger. You were always safest with me.” She takes another sip of tea, her gulp so gluttonous I want to squeeze the life out of her.