“Even if you want them. Even if you search and pray and start completely over. It doesn’t matter. There are things you lose you can’t get back again. Things that once you know, you can never unknow.”

“I understand.”

I got off the sofa. Agitated now. I swear I could smell roses and I hated that smell. Why wouldn’t it leave me alone? I had fled my parents’ house, I had fled my parents’ town. The damn roses ought to leave me alone.

“She was mentally ill,” I blurted out. “A raging alcoholic. She did … crazy, crazy things and we covered for her. That’s what my father and I did. We let her torture us every single day and we never said a word. Life in a small town, right? Gotta keep up appearances.”

“She beat you.”

I laughed but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “She fed me rat poison so she could watch the doctors pump my stomach. I was a tool for her. A beautiful little doll she could break every time she wanted attention.”

“Münchhausen.”

“Probably. I’ve never sought an expert opinion.”

“Why not?”

“She’s dead. What’s the point?”

He gave me a look, but I refused to take the bait.

“Your father?” he asked at last.

“Successful lawyer with a reputation to uphold. Can’t really be admitting that his wife bashes gin bottles over his head every other night. Wouldn’t be good for business.”

“He put up with it?”

“Isn’t that how these things work?”

“Sadly, yes. Tell me again, Sandy, how did she die?”

I thinned my lips, refused him.

“Carbon monoxide poisoning,” he said at last, a statement, not a question. “Found in her car in the garage. Suicide, I would guess. Or maybe she drank too much and passed out behind the wheel? What I don’t understand is why the authorities let it go. Especially given that it was a small town, and someone, somewhere, had to know how she treated you.”

I stared at him. I couldn’t help myself. I stared and I stared and I stared. “You knew?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t have married you otherwise.”

“You investigated me?”

“It’s a prudent thing to do, before asking a girl to become your wife.” He touched my hand. This time, I jerked away. “You think I married you for Ree. You have always believed I married you for Ree. But I didn’t. Or at least, not for her alone. I married you because of your mother, Sandy. Because you and I are alike that way. We know monsters are real, and they don’t all live under the bed.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” I heard myself say.

He was silent.