“It wasn’t so bad, really.” She swallowed the horror. “I just can’t stand the smell of myself. It makes my eyes water.” Liar, liar. She wiped her eyes on the napkin Tina handed her. “Anyway, when I woke up I was surrounded by smoke and was a little disoriented, that’s all.”

“Anyone would have been,” Camille said very quietly, giving the outer appearance of being as tranquil as the tea she began to pour.

And yet there was worry and sheer terror in her eyes. Summer absorbed both and knew she couldn’t tell them how she’d panicked, how she’d gotten lost in her old nightmare. She couldn’t tell them that she’d had to dial 9–1–1 blindly because of the smoke, or that by the time the firefighters had found her, she’d given herself up for lost for the second time in her life. “At least they stopped the flames in time to save the building. That’s good news.”

“No, the good news is that you’re alive and relatively unscathed.” Tears made Tina’s voice thick as she wrapped her arms around her niece from behind.

Camille began to add sugar to Summer’s tea with fingers that shook so violently Summer was surprised the sugar even made it into the cup. “The insurance company is not going to be happy with us.”

“They can go to hell,” Tina said fervently, placing a noisy kiss on Summer’s cheek. “We pay a fortune for that coverage and we’ve done nothing wrong.”

Camille just kept adding sugar to Summer’s tea.

“In fact, they’ll be lucky if Summer herself doesn’t sue us,” Tina said.

“What? I’m not going to sue you,” Summer said, horrified. “The whole thing is my fault. The candles—” She broke off as her mom let out a choked sound and dropped a sixth teaspoon of sugar in Summer’s tea.

Tina exchanged a worried look with Summer. “Maybe we should talk about something else.”

But in Summer’s opinion, that was the problem. No one had ever forced Camille to face anything that bothered her. Including Summer. “I think we should get it all out.” She leaned close to her mom. “I’m so sorry, Mom. God, so sorry.” Her voice caught. “But I think I forgot to blow out a candle. I think I burned the place down.”

“No. Oh, darling, no,” Tina said fiercely. “I lit those candles, because I loved watching them burn.”

Camille’s teaspoon clattered to the table as she covered her mouth.

Socks, sensing her mistress’s distress, jumped into Camille’s lap and butted her head against Camille’s belly.

Summer scooted closer. “Mom?”

“I’m okay.”

“We all are, thank God,” Tina said firmly, taking each of their hands. “Because no one got hurt. Anything we lost can be replaced.”