“Can you believe this is happening here?” Bill asked the entire room, his hands wide, his eyeglasses slipping to the end of his nose. The top of his head was as bald as ice, and the fringe of hair that remained was completely gray. He answered his own question, not bothering to wait for a response. “A murder last night, and then this shooting today. Not that I think what the cops did is murder. I mean, if the guy drew on them or something to resist arrest, then what could they do? But how many murders do you think we had in Rossingville last year? Do you know?”

I shrugged. “Ten?”

“Four. Four.” He held up his hand with four fingers extended for emphasis, his gold watch slipping down his arm. “This is the fourth one for this year. And it’s only April. And this woman got killed in her own home. By some intruder. You all lock your doors every night, don’t you?”

“Of course, Dad,” Amanda said.

“Have you thought about an alarm system? Living downtown like that.”

“We might actually,” Amanda said.

“With a baby you need to be more careful. Someone might want to take him.”

“Bill, why would you say that?” Karen asked.

“I’m just saying—kids . . . they’re vulnerable. Really vulnerable.”

His words brought an awkward silence over everyone. Only the TV kept the room from becoming as quiet as a church. I couldn’t help it. My eyes trailed across the room to a portrait of Mallory, one taken when she was in the eighth grade and had only one year to live. She wore a white sweater and a smile with braces. She looked so much like Amanda that if I hadn’t been told Amanda had had a sister, I would have thought it was a picture of her.

“Actually, I need to tell you something,” Amanda said. And I could tell what she was going to do. She was about to tell them the truth. She and her parents had that kind of relationship, the kind where they really told one another things. The three of them were close, a relationship—so Amanda said—forged from the grief over their deceased daughter and sister. I’d lost my dad suddenly, but I still wasn’t as open with my mom as Amanda was with Karen and Bill. She had said she wanted to keep everything quiet, but I knew she couldn’t. Not with them. “Can you turn the TV down a little, Dad?”

“Well, they might say something important. Ryan acted like he wanted to hear.”

“Dad? Please?”

Bill responded to the pleading in her voice and fumbled around for a moment before he found the remote, lifted his glasses to his forehead, and muted the TV. The silence felt as welcome as rain on a hot summer day. I could think.

“What is it, honey?” Karen asked. “Are you okay?”