Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Acknowledgments
- P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
- About the Author
- About the Book
- Also by Alison Gaylin
- About the Publisher
Standing now in her parents’ backyard at two in the morning, thirty years later and with her father in his grave, Robin could practically see him here again, surprised as he’d been on that night, Dad caught in the act in his pajamas and robe, stale smoke hovering between them as he turned to her, shame all over his face.
You never truly know anyone. Every human being who has lived long enough to make mistakes has secrets stashed away in the back of a locked closet or stored in a cloud or crouching in the darkest depths of the brain, moments of weakness that they’ve worked their whole lives to hide, even from those they love most. Especially from those they love most.
Robin’s father smoked. Her mother owned a gun.
Robin shut her eyes tight for several seconds and inhaled the smell of her parents’ garden—the pasty scent of tiger lilies hanging in the sticky night air, the same way it had the night of her father’s forbidden cigarette break. It had been the same time of year. Summer vacation, Robin biding her time until camp, each day an endless day in an endless summer in which nothing bad would happen. Promise me you won’t smoke anymore, Dad, she had said. He’d given her a smile. I’ll try not to, honey. Such a good person. Unable to make a promise to his daughter that he might not be able to keep. When Robin opened her eyes again, they were filled with tears.
The full moon bathed her parents’ garden and made it glow like an image in a dream. When she’d left her house, Eric had been asleep in the bed beside her, so thoroughly unconscious that she hadn’t even needed to worry about keeping quiet as she escaped. She assumed he’d gotten into her sleeping pills, which was understandable. He had work in the morning.
At 1:30 A.M., Robin had woken up from a fitful half-sleep, the pills not working quite as well as she’d hoped. She’d watched Eric for a few moments—his pained, twitching face—wondering what he could possibly be dreaming. And then she’d left. Threw some yoga pants on, some sneakers, along with the big T-shirt she’d been sleeping in—one of Eric’s, from a marathon he’d run back in 2004. She’d driven to her parents’ house without thinking, as though drawn here by a magnet with no real idea why. She’d parked about a block and a half up, in front of the small public garden she sometimes played in as a kid, jogged from there to the house on the opposite side of the street, so as not to alert Mr. Dougherty of her presence.