“But you must be kind,” Laura was saying. “She’s very nice, and her father was a classmate of your father’s from law school—Anthony Radegan.”

“Anthony who?” Barrett said. “Never heard of him.”

I felt a surge of anger. I was tempted to open the door and say, Keep my father’s name out of your mouth.

“He saved my life,” John said. “I almost drowned, and he pulled me from the pool.”

“What? You never mentioned that,” Barrett said.

“It’s never come up,” Laura said. “We don’t tell you everything, Barrett.”

He snorted. “I guess not.”

“Barrett,” she said sharply. “Maintain a respectful tone, please.”

If Laura had spoken to me with that note of pitiless authority, I would have run away and hidden under the bed. I waited to see how Barrett would respond.

There was a pause. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he said, much more quietly. “But I don’t understand—doesn’t she have any other family?”

My hands went clammy and my stomach turned cold.

“No, in fact, she doesn’t,” John said. “There was a great-aunt on her mother’s side, but she passed away several years ago. The grandparents are all dead.”

“Not a single friend?” Barrett asked.

“She was staying with friends . . .” Laura said carefully. “But it didn’t work out. She had nightmares. It disturbed the children.”

What a polite way to say that my nightly screaming sent both of Becca’s younger siblings to psychotherapy.

“Well, that sounds great,” Barrett said, and I could hear the eye roll in his voice. “Bring her here and let her disturb us.”

My back was feeling sore from the hunched position I had assumed. I straightened up and bumped into the bookshelf, knocking down a stack of books that had been hastily piled on the edge of the shelf. I hurriedly gathered them and returned them to their pile while straining to hear what was being said.

“It hasn’t been an issue,” Laura said firmly. “She’s doing very well here. We all like her.”

I felt a swell of affection for Laura. She liked me. She wouldn’t let him force me out onto the streets.

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Barrett said. “Who is she? Was her father even respectable? So he saved your life, Dad, that’s great, but couldn’t—couldn’t you just pay to send her to boarding school or something?”

“Barrett,” John said, sounding appalled. “I didn’t realize we had raised a snob. Respectable? Her father was a good man.”

“Listen, darling,” Laura said, sweetly conciliatory. “When your father proposed it to me, I thought it was an awful idea. The last thing I wanted was a stranger here, in our family’s home—with Agatha being as fragile as she is.”

Wait. Laura hadn’t wanted me? I felt like I’d been sucker punched, right under the rib cage.