Cora softly shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is what you’ve done to destroy twenty-two years of silence.” Then she stands, and when she does, she doesn’t look like my sister. She looks like the girl who came out of the bedroom while Caleb frantically tried to distance himself from her. “And what needs to be done about it.”

She’s in my face, my father is seated behind me, and sandwiched in their presence, a new disturbing thought hits me.

What if this family meeting isn’t at all about what to do with Cora?

What if it’s about what should be done with me?

Fifty-Seven

Cora looks at me with a simple gaze, almost one of kindness. Or pity. Our noses are inches from each other. I stand my ground.

Ice clinks in my father’s glass as he sips. “Cora was always different,” he says to my back. “Quick to be cruel. Struggled with kindness. I wasn’t so worried, not at first. After all, the same thing could be said about me.” He lets out the softest of chuckles.

“No,” I say, struggling to reconcile my father’s words with distant memories. “We got along when we were little. We played all the time. You liked me, Cora. And I liked you.”

Cora tilts her head and purses her lips. “Aw, aren’t you fucking sweet?”

“You didn’t see it, Rose,” my father says. “You were too young to notice the differences between you and your sister, but you weren’t like her. Not in any way. In fact, you were so dissimilar from either of us, I sometimes wondered if you were even mine.”

I want to turn to him, to see my father’s face, but I’m scared to turn away from my sister.

“What the hell kind of thing is that to say?” I ask him.

“Just the truth.”

Several heartbeats pass. “And?” I say.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I assume you’re my kid, but who’s to know the truth? I suppose it doesn’t really much matter, does it?”

Cora finally speaks. “Maybe Mom fucked some bartender because she was bored. Maybe that’s where you came from.”

“Watch your goddamned tongue,” my father says. “All I know is you two were never alike. I had to work harder with Cora, give her extra attention.”

My stomach lurches at the way he said that. I pull back a few inches from her face, taking her all in at once. “Cora, did he…”

“You’re so simple-minded,” she snaps. “Not everything has a reason, Rose. Some things just are.”

“Are what?” I ask. “What are you, Cora?”

I hear my father rise from his chair.

“Despite what I knew about her impulses,” he says, “I didn’t think your sister was ever capable of…” He clears his throat instead of finishing his sentence. “But I was wrong. I knew I was wrong the moment I came home that night. But what was I going to do? She was my child. My firstborn. I wasn’t just going to let the wolves take her away.”