Colleen took the card from him and read the ten rules out loud. “Don’t argue; instead agree. Never reason; instead divert. Never shame; instead distract. Never lecture; instead reassure. Never say ‘remember’; instead reminisce. Never say ‘I told you’; instead repeat and regroup.” Colleen stopped reading, although there was more. “We are going to have to learn a new way of being with him.”

Shane took the card from Colleen and glanced at it. “Now what? Do we start this now?”

“God, I feel so bad for every time I’ve said ‘remember’ or corrected him or explained. I was only making it worse.”

“We are doing the best we can.” Hallie stood and began to pace the room, chewing on the end of her thumbnail. “First the party. Let’s get that straight and then . . .”

Colleen burst from her chair, the tears she had wanted to shed freezing in her chest, her tears turning hard. “Are you kidding me? You are so obsessed with the party, I can see you just don’t want to think about the most important things.”

“If that’s true”—Hallie drew close to her sister—“then you’re the one who’s spent ten years avoiding the deeper issues with the party that is your life. ‘Just ignore it’ seems to be your motto.”

“Ignore it?” Colleen’s voice felt not her own, but made of old resentment and anger and fear, and something even darker. “How could I ignore it, Hallie? Maybe I’ve stayed away from it. Maybe I’ve turned from it. But ignore it? Hell, no.”

“Stop!” Shane’s voice rang out and they both startled at their brother’s reprimand. “Hallie, why are you so obsessed with the party? It’s simple. You’ve done them before.”

“Let’s go over this timeline. I want to get it right and I can’t. Something is wrong and you both act like you don’t care.”

“A slight overstatement.” Colleen motioned to the pile of stories she’d spent all night writing.

“Since we didn’t have time before Susan arrived, let me show you now.” Hallie reached her slender fingers into a leather satchel she’d dropped onto the couch. She withdrew a pile of note cards. From where she stood, Colleen could see Hallie’s loopy left-handed scribbling—a line or two on each card with a date on the top left corner. Hallie reached into her bag again, withdrew a roll of masking tape. She walked to one side of the kitchen, where she began to tape the note cards, one by one, on Shane’s cream-colored plaster walls.

He didn’t stop her.

Shane and Colleen watched their sister with wonder. This wasn’t like her—the extremes of emotion, the barrage of words. Soon the cards were taped in crooked lines.