I want to shake him. I want to take him by his sloping shoulders and waggle him back and forth until his brain stem comes undone. The cards. The crazy. “Her disorder, Gary. The mania. The paranoia. All of it.”

“Oh, that,” he says as if he’d forgotten all about it.

Yes, Gary, that. I bend down to fold the lids of a nearby box together and scoop it up. This one seems to be mostly full of accessories—purses and a pair of suede boots.

Gary follows my lead, closing up another box after tucking its escaping contents back inside.

“I said I would take care of it,” I tell him.

He rises, pausing, fumbling with his hands. Finally, he says, “She’s not like that woman in the article. She’s not that bad.”

“Then you haven’t seen her at her worst.”

Gary doesn’t say anything. He turns toward the door as if to leave.

I stand and face him. “You said things slip out when she drinks. What other things?”

Gary turns around. “Cat, it’s not my place.”

“It’s my family. If you know things about my family that I don’t know, then spill.”

He takes a sudden interest in the pointy toes of his boots. “I don’t know much. What she told you today, about her momma. I know how hard losing her dad was on her. It got rough after that, between the two of ’em. Real rough. And she had some problems—at school.”

“What kind of problems?”

He shrugs. “She won’t say exactly, but she says things that make it obvious if you’re paying attention.”

I narrow my eyes. “What kind of things?” I know I’m making Gary uncomfortable, but I don’t care.

“She calls it a bad place. Says they hated her there. Says they had ways of punishing her that shouldn’t be allowed to happen in this country. Says they were worse than her mother ever was.”

My stomach rolls. “Who? Who punished her? Did she say?”

“No,” he admits with a sigh.

I close my eyes, and Moony’s white hair and glowing skin swim before me, the square frames of Father Terry’s glasses, Eric’s mouth grinning on the word “scandal.” I am nauseous with truth.

“I’ve tried asking,” he says all of a sudden. “It’s only when she’s drunk and on a roll that some of this comes out.”

I frown. “She doesn’t like to talk about her past.”

“I know you got issues with your momma,” he says. “I understand. There were days growing up when I could have lit my house on fire and never looked back. My daddy was a drunk and a mean one at that. But your mom has been through a lot, Cat. And she’s trying. Which is more than I could ever say for my dad.”