For a moment, my body warms as if I were sitting next to them, facing the flames. This sullen teen with the Lizzie Borden poster is hanging out with Max on a Friday night, roasting marshmallows. Improbable as I would have thought, perhaps she’s the most redeeming one of the family.

I watch from the darkness of the garage, my boy hanging out with his cousin. They’re talking but I can’t make out their words.

For a moment, this feels like a normal family.

After I moved away for college, it would have been forgivable for someone with my history to have never spoken to their family again. Forgivable, understandable, and probably what I should have done. But there’s that tiny ember that never quite leaves you, that minuscule source of heat that burns inside, telling you that, no matter who your family is, they are special and shouldn’t be cut from your life like some malignant tumor. Nothing is more important than family. That’s what my father said the night Caleb Benner bled in our house. Without family, we have nothing. It’s so easy to dismiss such clichéd phrases, but clichés only exist because of the truth on which they’re based. In all my years away from Bury, all the years with Riley, a small part of me always missed my family. It’s so messed up. Borderline Stockholm syndrome. But without that tiny ember smoldering inside me, I don’t think I ever would have come back here. But now, watching my son and niece, I see it for what it is. I didn’t come back here just for my father’s financial support. I came here because of an illogical desire to be with my family. To be a Yates, grotesque, cancerous warts and all.

And seeing these two, roasting marshmallows, it’s almost a validation of that desire. That maybe we can share a closeness that’s always been just out of reach.

I crack the garage door open, not necessarily trying to remain silent but not announcing myself either. I want to hear a bit of their conversation, mostly because I love hearing Max talk when he doesn’t know I’m around. Observing him in the wild.

“—you mean by that?”

His voice. He sounds anxious. Not what I was expecting.

“It’s true,” Willow says. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that already. It’s a good thing I’m here to tell you.”

“It’s not true.”

I know that voice. Max is stressing out. My instinct is to go to him, but I resist. I want to know what exactly she’s telling him.

“My mom told me everything, and she knows because your mom told her. Sisters, you know. They share everything.”

“You’re lying.”

I grip the door handle, my stomach clenching. Nausea rising. Whatever Willow is talking about, it’s clear she’s already told him, so interrupting her now wouldn’t do any good. Max has already heard something I’m sure I didn’t want him to hear.

So I listen, fingers squeezing the cold door handle, heart in my throat.