I let out a practiced sigh. “I think being in a different place will be good for both of us.”

Willow steps around her father and right up to Max. She’s a good five inches taller than him. “Did you see the body?” she asks.

“Willow Sofia,” Cora says. “How can you ask that?”

Cora is horrified, as am I, and both of us for reasons beyond the shock of the question itself. The moment produces a surge of electrical current through my body, jolting me to a sudden, surprising, and dissonant thought:

I miss my sister.

So odd I feel that right now, in this moment. It doesn’t last long, but enough for Cora and me to make eye contact and have what I think is a shared moment.

Max squeezes my hand a little harder but gives no other indication he’s upset. He doesn’t react. He doesn’t retreat.

Instead, he simply says, “Yes.”

I’m amazed he answered.

Willow’s eyes widen. “What was it like?”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I say.

“Quite enough,” Peter adds. “Behave yourself, Willow.”

“I was just asking.”

Before Willow gets another scolding, Max says, “He looked peaceful.” Max shifts his focus and looks directly at me. “He didn’t look angry anymore.”

His answer sucks the air out of me. Max has never talked about the few seconds he saw Riley’s body in the bed, and now that he does, he describes it…this way.

He didn’t look angry anymore.

“Did you cry?”

I turn and see my father, who’s just walked into the foyer with a drink in hand. Single-malt whiskey, if habit holds true.

“No,” Max mumbles. “Not right then.”

“That’s because you’re a Yates,” my father says. “And Yateses don’t panic. Don’t lose their nerve in a crisis.”

“Jesus, Dad.”

My father barrels right over me. “In fact, I’d wager none of us were as young as Max when we first saw a dead body. Any takers on that?”

My entire body stiffens with an old, familiar dread, one so heavy and instant it’s as if I’ve been cast into stone.

“Stop it, Dad,” I say.

Willow chimes in. “I’ve seen lots of messed-up stuff on YouTube.”

“No.” My father points in her direction with his drink. “I’m talking real stuff. Live, so to speak. You had to be there. See it in person.” He doesn’t pause long enough for anyone to interject. “I saw my first dead person when I was twenty-one. Wasn’t even a funeral, though I’d been to a few of those already. But they were all closed-casket.” He takes another step closer, locked in on me. “Cory Levitz. Senior year of college. I didn’t know him, but his car wrapped around a lamppost right outside my apartment. After midnight on a Friday. Drunk as a skunk. I was the third or fourth person there after hearing the crash. Car was crumpled like a beer can. His blood all over the windshield. Someone had a flashlight, and I couldn’t even fathom the fact his arm was no longer—”