Ronnie pulled out the device, wanting to take a closer look. When she turned it on, there was a “1” next to an app called Student Work. Had Esme already uploaded a drawing? Perhaps Miss Barnes had already realized what a great artist Esme was. But when Ronnie clicked on the icon and the image came up, she couldn’t make sense of the words. She stared into the living room, stunned. Then she felt her knees go boneless.

“Mommy?” Esme whined. “Are we going to play?”

“Hang on,” Ronnie said shakily. What on earth? There, in the center of the device’s screen, was an uploaded image of a few crayon-printed words. The letters were crooked and unsure, but the message loud and clear.

Mommy. Everyone knows. Everyone hates you.

Four

Mom. Mom!”

Andrea Vaughan dreamed she was skydiving. Not that she’d ever done such a thing, but there she was, falling from an airplane, the wind whipping against her face. As she looked down, there was a figure lower in the sky, falling faster. The figure turned onto his back to face her. His features sharpened before her eyes. Andrea saw the familiar round chin and rosebud lips. His long neck and sinewy arms. He was reaching out for her, his eyes full of fear and regret.

She drew in a breath. A name formed in her mind. Roger. She needed to help him. She needed to catch him in time.

“Mom!”

Andrea’s eyes snapped open. It was Tuesday morning. Her four-year-old son sat on the bed, his face inches from hers, his tiny fingers grabbing fistfuls of sheets.

“Arthur,” she said, blinking hard, sitting up. “What is it?”

“You’ll never believe it.” Her son’s grin was huge. “There’s a Power Rangers episode on right now!”

Andrea rubbed her eyes. She was still stuck in that dream. That nightmare.

“Come on, come on!” Arthur was already running out of the room. “You have to see!”

Andrea slid out of the bed. Feet on the floor. Reality again. “Hang on.”

She hurried into the bathroom. At the mirror, she leaned in close and inspected the lines on her face and the nakedness of her features. A swipe of lipstick here, a blot of concealer there. Hang on, let me put on my face for the day, her mother, Cynthia, used to say. Cynthia’s boudoir was teenage Andrea’s favorite guilty pleasure: beholding her mom’s giant vanity of colors, labels, scents. All those private hours of slathering and puffing and brushing . . . and then hastily wiping it all off when she heard her mother’s key in the door down the long, long hall. Because back then, Andrea wasn’t a her in her mother’s eyes. Andrea was her mother’s son.

But that was then. That was New York, and this was California, and she was free. Sort of.