And he laughs. He laughs a bitter, mirthless laugh, and his hot bourbon-fueled breath fills the kitchen, turns the air into a dangerous, combustible thing. All we’d need is a match and we’d all go up with a bang.

He staggers out of the kitchen, bumping against a chair, hitting the wall as he careens around the corner toward our bedroom. I hear him in there, opening drawers. Maybe he’s putting on his pajamas. Maybe he’s tired and sick and sick and tired and just wants to lie down, wants the day to be over, mercifully over.

But then I hear his footsteps move into the living room.

And Jason, he says, “Daddy, what’re you doing with Sweet Melissa?”

And there’s that laugh again, that empty haunting laugh that fills the hall as I start to run, run from the kitchen toward the living room, over the carpet; I’m going faster than I ever have in my life, past the door to the cellar, the bedrooms, the bathroom with the leaking faucet, and into the living room, where Sam is standing by the mantel, holding his little silver pistol. His laugh turns into a hum, a little song, and at last I can make out the words:

“Finished,” he says. “We’re all finished.”

I step toward him, hands outstretched. “Sam,” I say. “My darling.”

And he raises the gun and fires.

CHAPTER 28

Olive

AUGUST 23, 2015

“Dad,” Olive said through the dust mask she was wearing. They were tearing down the old plaster and lath wall in her bedroom, and the air was thick with dust. It was funny, because she’d spent all day yesterday helping Helen and Nate finish putting up new drywall in their house. Today they were starting the process of taping and compounding. And here she was, tearing down an old, perfectly good wall. It was the one they’d thought they were keeping, but Daddy insisted they redo it anyway—that it would look funny to have smooth, new drywall on three walls and bumpy old plaster on the other. She’d told him it was fine, preferable even, to keep the old wall (she even suggested accentuating the difference by painting it a different color), but he insisted. “Your mama always says ‘No point doing a job if you’re not going to do it right.’ ”

And who was she to argue with Mama?