She still had Sarah’s auburn hair, her sharp eyes. But there was no mistaking that Ruth didn’t have the one thing that Mickey did: Silas. A father who put her above all else simply because she was herself and, therefore, by definition, his. Every time she reached and wasn’t pulled in tight, every time she wanted to be held close but had no one for whom to reach. Every time she didn’t want to but had to anyway. It was the youngest she had ever looked, this otherwise blasé newcomer in their home who wore mystery like a girl trying on her mother’s perfume. The fact that she wore it beautifully was beside the point.

Mickey had wants, sure. But Ruth, like Lily, was a girl left wanting.

—

SILAS LOOKED UP AND caught Ruth watching him and Mickey. He squeezed Mickey’s shoulders and staggered forward, Mickey attached to him like deadweight, until, in one more exaggerated zombie step, he came to a stop in front of her. Then he reached out his free arm and pulled her in, so swiftly the girls almost knocked their heads together against his chest. Ruth tensed for just a second, but then she fell against him, throwing her arms around his waist, overlapping Mickey’s.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” he asked, and, without looking back once, they lumbered as one out the door.

PEYOTE

JACK’S WAS BUSY, WHICH happened only on the nights I was most desperate to be alone. I had to push past sport-coat-clad elbows and through clouds of smoke just to get within earshot.

“Heya, Pey,” Jack said. “What’ll it be?”

“The usual,” I said. “Whatever you’ve got.”

Jack nodded and disappeared into the basement. I forced my way onto a stool and busied my hands with the bar’s peeling shellac.

“Barkeep! Jäger me!”

I didn’t notice him when he pulled out the stool next to mine, but, as always, when he spoke, he became impossible to ignore.

“Hey, Trey,” I muttered.

“Oh snap!” he said. “Our number one person non-grated.”

“Persona non grata?”

Trey snapped his fingers at the empty space behind the bar.

“Whatever is foreign for ‘the person no one wants.’ ”

I opened my mouth to respond but decided against it. This was my night, and I was going to do what I pleased. And in no version of life, in Hell or otherwise, did that include small talk with Trey.

“Does no one work here?”

“Bro, chill,” said some sleeveless stranger, and I had to fight the urge not to clap him on the back. Jack might’ve been the only person anyone knew how to treat with respect.

Then the basement door knocked open, and, like a savior, he appeared.