“Okay,” I said, sighing. I wondered if there would ever be a time when I could say no to her.

I drove to her house the next afternoon. She answered the door wearing jeans and a faded T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen her dressed that way. She looked totally different, softer, middle-aged.

“Come on in,” she said.

We went to Danielle’s old room. She’d kept it the same. The old brass bed and quilt, the framed posters on the walls. Open cardboard boxes were lined up next to the closet.

“I’m cleaning,” Sally said. “Getting rid of this old stuff. I thought Danielle would take it someday, but now there’s no reason to keep it.”

“Sally, are you sure? What if you change your mind later?”

“I won’t. I’m putting the house on the market,” she said. “It’s too big. Too many memories.”

I frowned. It was disconcerting to think Sally wasn’t going to live here. This place was one of my landmarks.

“Remember this skirt?” Sally said. “She always wore it, when was that? Tenth grade?”

“Eleventh.”

“It’s cute. I bet it would fit you, you’re so tiny. Will you take it? Can you use this stuff?”

“I guess,” I said. “If you want.”

“It was hers,” she said. “It should go to you.”

“Okay.”

“There’s something else, too. The real reason I wanted you to come.” She picked up a large gray envelope from Danielle’s old vanity and handed it to me. “Open it,” she said.

Inside was a sheaf of forms from the Bank of Texas. “What is this?” I said.

“I set up a trust for you. There’s half a million dollars in it. The money that would have gone to Danielle. I want you to have it.”

I sat down on the bed, dropped the papers beside me. I felt a sudden vertigo.

Sally was grinning across the room at me. “Well, honey? What do you say?”

“I can’t take this,” I said. “It’s not right.”

“Sweetie, you can’t not take it.”

“It’s too much,” I said.

She laughed. “When it comes to cash, darlin’, there’s no such thing. Besides, you deserve it.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Sure, you do. Something good for a change.”

I felt claustrophobic. Half a million dollars. Jesus.

“It’s not about deserving anything,” I said. “Danielle didn’t deserve what happened to her. Not back then, the abuse. How you let it happen. She didn’t deserve to be murdered.”

“Charlotte, stop it.”

Her big smile was gone. I’d erased it.

“All you ever did was throw money at her. You didn’t protect her. It didn’t help when she was little. And then it got her killed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This is why Audrey killed her,” I said. “This money is why she died. Didn’t they tell you what happened?”

“Of course they told me. I’m her goddamn mother, Charlotte. I tried to help her. That woman was crazy. You can’t blame me for her actions.”