“You were there physically, but you were not right there,” Molly says, looking straight ahead. “You never checked in on me. If I checked in on you, you changed the subject. If I tried to talk about Oscar, you changed the subject. If I tried to talk about how I was doing, you changed the subject. And you were fine. He was supposed to be your friend, and you watched him die, and you didn’t care even a little. The only thing you cared about was making sure you looked good in the public eye. I needed you,” she chokes. “I tried to come to you so many times. And I might as well have been telling you about a foreign news story or something for all you cared. Our friend died, Rose. And you and I were there when it happened. You should’ve been the person I could speak to the most about it. But you completely shut me out. I was crumbling, and you just watched me.”

I remember the day after Oscar died as clearly as if I were living it now. We all left the lodge that night, and I flew back home. Here. There was a flurry of activity as my parents spoke to me, together then individually, as well as meetings with William. My bodyguard, Elizabeth, was fired early that afternoon, because of me. Adults flew from room to room talking in urgent voices, concocting plans, composing statements. I remember walking to my bathroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror and urging myself to cry. It felt as though I should cry—both because of the ache in my chest that longed to be released, and the general sense that it was disrespectful to Oscar’s memory not to cry. But no matter how urgently I willed it, the tears never came.

I remember how loud my body seemed. My beating heart was a booming bass drum, my breaths were a howling wind, my parched lips stuck together and pulled apart with a dry ripping noise. Like Velcro, I remember noting.

Eventually, I gave up. Then I wandered to the study, pulled every book off the shelf, and placed them back one by one in alphabetical order.