Mom waves a hand to reject the idea. “Wess and I lost influence on Sylvie’s life and respect for her decisions a long time ago.”

When Dad took me fishing, I’d repeatedly ask if it hurt the steelhead when we removed the hook. Dad always said no, but as Mom’s barb sinks into my flesh and I pull free, I’m sure it did. I hide my flinch, remember, as we leave the kitchen, that it was my idea to come here; that Hana’s acid tongue has brought Thomas, whose goal it is to bury me alive, to my defense. Yesterday I never would’ve thought that possible.

On the stairs, my palm glides along polished wood I once slid down. Photos dot the wall—Mom’s extended family at a reunion lined in perfect rows with only the hint of a smile, as if life, even at a picnic, was serious business. Dad’s folks posed in front of their trees, both wearing Young Orchards baseball hats—Grandpop Dick with a thumbs-up sign while Grandmom Kate stared into his face like he hung the stars. They died within a month of each other.

Halfway up the stairs is Mom and Dad’s wedding portrait—they’re both so young, faces unlined. Dad in a dark blue suit, green eyes full of sparks. Mom wore her grandmother’s satin wedding dress, high-necked, exquisitely beaded. She looked like a rare, delicate flower. As a kid, I dreamt about wearing her dress for my own wedding. I wanted to be and look like her, but when I hit five-foot-eight in seventh grade, that dream went up in smoke. The other one, the desire to have something in common, took longer to die.

At the top, the first door on the right is a sewing room, bolts of fabric stacked neatly in one corner. Dad’s study is across the hall, wood panels, and tomes on agriculture, horticulture, and viniculture, along with the novels of Hemingway, Dickens, Austen, Woolf, Fitzgerald, and Tolstoy. When I needed to get away, I’d curl on the tweed couch while Dad worked, look at photographs of flowers and trees. I dove into the classics when I got older, tales of Gatsby’s green light, feminism, Russian counts, and the Spanish Civil War. In this room I almost belonged.

Narrow steps to the right of the study’s door lead to my parents’ bedroom. Gooseflesh breaks along my arms as I approach. Buried recollections slip through cracks . . . Mom in a leather chair, knitting needles clacking as she waited outside the bathroom for an apology. My memories are a nest of spiders suddenly caught in bright light. They skitter to dark corners.

“Where does that go?” Thomas asks with a nod at the staircase.

“My folks’ room.”

The door beyond the stairs opens to my old bathroom—black and white square tiles, a tub, and a pedestal sink. My bedroom is across from it, door shut. I’m certain it’s been renovated, now an innocuous guest room. Still, nerves jitter. She wouldn’t leave my collection. Mom isn’t sentimental and Dad has no voice inside this house. Moose noses my hand. I reach for the knob, say “Tada!” for comic effect, and swing the door wide . . .