“Now, girls,” their mother said. “Stop this. Greta, I’m sorry you’re upset. We just thought it might be nice if you gave someone a chance who you ordinarily wouldn’t look at twice.”

Greta goggled.

“Someone I ordinarily wouldn’t…do you mean, like, a guy?”

Nell shrugged. “Love is love, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Greta said. “It is. And if I happen to fall in love with a man, then fine. I mean, I probably won’t, because I’m a lesbian. But you don’t get to throw those words around like a flotation device to redeem you from doing something shitty. You knew I would hate that. You knew I would’ve hated it even if it was all women who were bidding on me! I can’t believe you!”

Unlike with Sadie, where all strong feeling eventually got expressed as anger, with her mother Greta finally felt tears threaten. It was a betrayal, plain and simple, and while the sisters all messed with one another from time to time, the thought that her mother either honestly didn’t know her well enough to understand how much this would upset her or, worse, didn’t care was enough to make her cry.

Their argument had brought her father to the living room as well. Always the last to engage, he looked at Greta with sympathy, but she’d long ago stopped thinking of him as an ally. What use was someone who agreed with you if they weren’t ever willing to risk discomfort to say so?

Tillie started to chime in with her typical placations, but Greta was done arguing. She wanted her mother to admit what she’d done—even Sadie had done that—and then she wanted to get the hell out of this house.

“Did you seriously not get that I would hate that?” she asked her mother point-blank.

Nell Russakoff’s face was the picture of aghast innocence.

“Darling, no. I would never do anything to upset you. I just thought maybe a little push… You can’t want to stay single forever. And it’s not as if there are many other lesbians on Owl Island…”

But Greta knew. The slight flick of her mother’s gaze to the left told Greta that Nell had been perfectly aware how Greta would respond.

“Okay, cool. Great,” she said sarcastically. “A push. Well, that sounds great to me. Yup, a push actually sounds like exactly what I need. The hell away from here.”

And without another word, she turned on her heel and walked back into the snow.

***

“I have to get out of here. I don’t care where,” she said to her friend Ramona after relating the incident.

“So get out, babe. I know it’s Chanukah and I know your family, but I must introduce you to my friend Boundaries, and her best friend, Also Boundaries.”