“You have to understand one thing. This will work only if you do exactly what I tell you. No questions, no looking for reasons or explanations. That’s my only condition, but it is nonnegotiable.”

I have no idea how such a plan could possibly work, but—unbelievably—I feel as though Annabelle and Francis have everything under control, that they’ll be able to repair the irreparable.

“The slightest mistake, and this is over,” Annabelle warns me. “Not only will you go to jail, but you’ll send Francis and me to jail too.”

I silently nod and ask what the plan is.

“Right now, the plan is for you to get a good night’s sleep so you’ll be fit and ready in the morning,” Annabelle says.

*  *  *

You know the craziest thing? That night, I slept like a baby. When your mother woke me the next morning, she was wearing jeans and a man’s jacket. She’d pinned her hair into a bun and hidden it under a cap—a German soccer cap. When she handed me the red wig and Vinca’s pink polka-dot sweater, I understood her plan. It was like the improv exercises we did in drama club when she’d tell us to slip into someone else’s skin. This was often how she set about casting a play. The difference was that, this time, the improvisation wouldn’t last five minutes, it would last a whole day, and I wouldn’t be playing for a role, I would be playing for my life.

I still remember how I felt as I put on Vinca’s clothes and the red wig. It was a feeling of fulfilment, of excitement, of consummation. I was Vinca. I had her lightness, her easy grace, her quick wit, that elegant indifference that was hers alone.