Contents (85)
- Contents
- Part I
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Part II
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Part III
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Seventy-One
- Seventy-Two
- One
- Two
- Reading Group Guide
- A Conversation with the Author
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
“You always liked her more than me. Paid her more attention. By the time I was ten, you didn’t seem to know I existed unless you were pissed off at me. And yet she turned into a monster.” It hits me that I’ve been trying to ask him this for over twenty years but never realized it. “What did you do to her?”
He leans in, jaw tight, face inches from mine. “You’re too soft, Rose. Cut the shit. Ask me what you’re really thinking.”
I swallow, finding the question hard to say aloud. Maybe it’s because I don’t know if I really want the answer. Deep breath. Close my eyes. That makes it easier.
“Did you touch her?”
I half expect him to hit me, denying my accusation with an open palm. The other half of me expects him to collapse into himself, a defeated man, admitting his guilt for the first time in his life.
Instead, he holds the straightest poker face the world has ever seen and says, “Did you kill your husband?”
The game continues.
I don’t answer. Neither does he.
“Well, then,” he says. “There you go.”
“I don’t want to be a part of this anymore,” I tell him. “This family. This…this life.”
He raises a hand, not to strike me but to touch my cheek, the kindest, coldest thing he’s offered me in a long time. “You can’t choose your family, Rose.” He removes his hand and my cheek warms. “Tonight,” he says. “Get Max out of the house. I don’t care how. Sleepover.”
“What? Why? It’s a school night.”
“I don’t give a shit. Just figure it out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to have a family meeting,” he says. “You, me, Cora. We’re going to figure this all out. Once and for all. No more loose ends.”
I start to protest, ready to launch into a verbal attack. He cuts me off with a raised hand.
“There is nothing more important than this right now,” he says. “You hear me? This requires our full attention.”
I want to defy him, tell him things are on my terms now. Tell him I don’t want to take his orders. But I don’t say any of these things.
Because he’s right.
If I have any chance of reaching the sister I used to love, of tapping into that tiny bit of humanity I know she still has left, it has to happen now.
Reach her, or stop her.
Tonight.
Forty-Nine
12:14 p.m.
The day fills, threatening to rise over my head and drown me.
Max slept in after I told him school was canceled, then bundled up and played outside long enough to make a snow fort. When he realized there were no other kids to play with, he came back inside and stuck his nose in a book.
A snowplow service came and dug out our driveway while municipal crews plowed the streets. Few cars have ventured out; it’s as if we’re all hunkering down and waiting for some threat to pass.