Well, hell, he thought.

Might as well see this thing through. Got the whole rest of my life to kill myself.

Fifty-Two

Bury, New Hampshire

September 18

Twenty-Two Years Ago

Caleb Benner struggles to breathe at the bottom of our staircase, the wheezing wet and muddled, the exhales more successful than the inhales. I’ve made it as far as the third step from the bottom before I’m unable to will myself any closer.

I don’t know if this is real. I have nothing to compare it to.

The knife is no longer inside him, having scattered a few feet away. Caleb tries to extend his arm, stretching his fingers toward the blade, but it’s only a futile gesture, a waste of whatever energy he has left. The knife is out of reach, and his strength has long since left him. Blood pools around his torso, his back twisted at an angle I’ve only seen on a broken doll.

“We have to call 911,” I whisper.

“No, we don’t,” Cora says. She’s sitting on the floor next to Caleb, stroking his hair, as if simply petting a cat.

“I don’t understand what’s happening.” I can’t stop looking at Caleb. His face. His desperate face. “Please tell me what’s happening.”

“This is happening,” she answers. “It doesn’t have to be complicated.”

She pats his cheek as I hear the sound of the door from the garage to the kitchen open and close.

Dad.

My father walks into the foyer, briefcase in hand, his suit as razor-sharp as when he’d left the house in the morning. He stops when he sees the scene before him. The dying boy not even twenty feet away at the base of the steps. His older daughter, stroking the hair of the victim. His younger, paralyzed with fear, mouth hanging open, refusing to move beyond the third step.

“Jesus Christ,” he says. He drops the briefcase and sheds his jacket, letting it fall to the floor. He walks over, eyes fixed, jaw tight, arms swaying. My father reaches Caleb and grabs his face.

Caleb’s eyes widen just a touch and then he settles back into a dreamy state. He’s going fast, I think.

I plead with my father. “Help him.”

My father ignores me and speaks only to Cora.

“What happened?”

“He tried to rape me,” she says, her voice devoid of any emotion. “It was self-defense.”

“Look at me,” he says. Not to Caleb but to Cora.

She does.

He leans closer and whispers into her ear. There’s something shared between them I can’t know about. But whatever it is he says, at the end of it, Cora does nothing but offer a casual shrug, as if he asked her what she wanted for dinner.

I can’t do the math that solves any of what I’m seeing. Cora’s an unconvincing liar, my father doesn’t care, and a sixteen-year-old boy is dying in between them.

My brain snaps and I suddenly find volume to go along with my words. “HELP HIM!” My voice is shrill, piercing, scaring me.