Ronnie’s fingers trembled as they held a paper cup of coffee. Across the wooden bench outside the café, her sister calmly stirred mint tea. Ronnie couldn’t recall her sister ever drinking mint tea before—not unless it was spiked with vodka. The innocence of it felt incongruous and wrong. In fact, all her feelings felt wrong. On the one hand, she was overjoyed to see her sister. She’d cried for a year, numb with grief, because she thought Vanessa was dead.

On the other hand, she was scared shitless. Because here was the end of the road. If Vanessa was here, surely Jerrod must be close behind.

“This sandwich is good,” Vanessa mused. “Yours?”

“Um,” Ronnie squeaked, “sure.”

She was too jacked up to try the sandwiches she’d bought for both of them for an early dinner—blessedly, Mrs. Lombardo said she could stay on with Esme back at the apartment. And anyway, they weren’t supposed to be talking about sandwiches. They weren’t supposed to be sitting outside a sandwich shop in the late afternoon California sunshine like everything was fine.

Finally, she couldn’t stand the silence. “You’re looking . . . okay,” she told Vanessa.

“Thanks,” Vanessa said, almost proudly.

Her sister’s hair was greasy. She’d lost at least thirty pounds since Ronnie had seen her last. She had broken capillaries around her eyes, and her clothes were oversize and threadbare, not that she’d ever dressed well. And she’d doused herself in cologne, which Ronnie feared was to cover up the smell of something else, like weed. There was also something wrong with her teeth, and she had a sore on the inside of her wrist that looked infected.

But her eyes were cunning and determined. She had Ronnie cornered, and they both knew it.

“When did you get here?” Ronnie asked next.

“Oh, last night. Drove in.”

“Are you working? Are you . . . you know, healthy?”

“Would I be here if I were using?” Vanessa’s voice was sharp. “I’ve been clean for years.”

Ronnie didn’t trust that. “Did you do a program? NA?”

“I found Jesus.” Vanessa’s voice was mocking, sarcastic. “Praise the Lord.”

Ronnie believed that Vanessa was born-again as much as she would have believed Vanessa if she told her she’d enrolled in law school. There were some things about people that didn’t change; when she and Vanessa were young, they lived across the street from a clapboard Baptist church, and when the parishioners dutifully filed in on Sunday mornings, Vanessa stood at the window in devil horns, snickering at their piousness. It made Ronnie sad to think about that; it was an affectionate memory, all things considered.