“But my mom didn’t do anything,” Max says.

“That’s not what the cops think.” Willow’s voice is calm, coy, and the perfect pitch to extract maximum pain. Now I understand why she has that poster on her wall. Lizzie Borden isn’t some kind of ironic fuck-you to Willow’s parents. She’s Willow’s idol. “They think she killed your dad.”

“Shut up.”

“What happened that night?” she asks. “What really happened? I mean, you were there. Were your parents fighting? Was it a normal night?”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“It’s okay, Max. You can tell me. You can trust me.”

My body heat rises a few degrees, fueled by anger.

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

She shrugs, as if the subject isn’t important. “Fine, we don’t have to.” She pauses a few seconds, then adds, “They’ll take her away for a long time. Then you won’t have any parents left, and you’ll probably have to live with Grandpa.”

It’s all I can do not to race over and whisk Max into my arms, but I want to see his reaction. He says only one more thing. Mutters it in a monotone voice, free from tears.

“She didn’t do anything.”

“Okay,” Willow says, her voice still chipper. Then they fall into a silence, and I realize if this were the moment in which I eavesdropped, I would have been warmed by their bonding.

A minute passes and I open the door.

“There you are,” I say.

Both heads snap toward me. Max drops his marshmallow stick into the fire and rushes at me, hugging me tight.

“Well, good to see you, too,” I say, hugging him back and kissing the top of his head. The heat from the fire on his clothes radiates into me, and I melt into my son.

“I thought you were going to be back later,” he says. His voice has a crack of emotion in it.

“I missed you, so I came back early.” I tussle his hair. “Now go into the house and get your book and anything else you brought over. I’ll meet you in the car in a moment.”

“You’re not coming now?”

“I want to warm up by the fire for a second.”

He pulls back and gives me a look of confusion, but I tell him, “Go.” He obeys, walking around the porch and back into the house through the back door.

Willow looks up at me from her chair, the firelight moving across her face.

“How was your date?” she asks.

I’m certain she means this as some kind of barb, but I answer truthfully. “Unexpected. Nice. And needed.”

I sit next to her in Max’s chair and pick his broken tree branch out of the fire. The marshmallow is long scarified, and the end of the branch glows in flame. I blow it out and study the smoldering tip, bringing it close enough to my eyes that they sting from the heat.

“You know,” I say, looking at the stick and not at her. “Most people think, under the right circumstances, anyone could kill. Self-defense, or to save someone they loved. That everyone is capable of taking a life. But it’s not true, you know.” Now I look over and the smug expression on her face hasn’t left, but it’s cooled. “I’ve talked to a lot of cops researching my books, and they say most people, even in those circumstances, still can’t do it. They freeze up out of sheer terror, or their brains simply can’t execute such an extreme command. A lot of people choose to lose their own lives instead of fighting to save them.” I put the stick back in the fire, igniting it. “But this family. Our family. Your family, Willow. We’re fighters. We are absolutely capable of killing.”