“Too young. Yes. He was seventeen but hadn’t taken his test. His father had taken him out before. The lane was quiet and he nagged and nagged. So I gave in, but he went so fast and the road was icy…”

I shudder, imagining it.

“He begged me to say I was driving. He’d been drinking the night before, could still have been over the limit. He was only seventeen, we both would have been prosecuted. I couldn’t bear…couldn’t bear to lose two children.”

“Oh God,” I whisper.

“I know it was wrong. But I thought I was protecting him. But he seemed to hate me for it. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t look at him anymore. I knew if I stayed, I’d end up hating him right back.”

I touch her hand. “Oh, Julia.”

“I left and he went more off the rails and then, at the wedding…I saw them. Jack and Bella. Kissing. We had…we had an argument, but he wouldn’t listen.”

I clench my fists and tuck them under my knees.

“I knew he was struggling—drinking and taking drugs. I didn’t want him to drag Bella down with him and I told him to leave her alone. He said he loved her but I ignored that, told him—told my own son he was a bad influence. The look on his face when I said it…I told him to get out and he went. But…” She takes a shallow, shaky breath. “I don’t know where he went and after…after…”

Bella died. After, Bella died. Wearing no underwear or shoes, full of alcohol and drugs.

“I should have said something to the police when they asked all their questions, but they said it was an accident and…it was Jack, he was my son.”

I can see the tortured guilt in the twist of her face, the tears on her cheeks.

I move my hand away from her.

“I’m sorry,” she says again.

“You should have told Dad—as soon as you found out. You knew what he was capable of. Christ, you left because of it. You should have told him what your son did to his daughter.”

She winces and the syringe driver hisses as it administers more morphine. I can see her eyes dulling as it creeps into her bloodstream.

“No,” I whisper. “Don’t you dare sleep now. Tell me. Tell me what your son did to my sister.”

She shakes her head. “He wouldn’t have…”

Wouldn’t he? I think of how Bella changed, how she started withdrawing, how she and Lena would go off together, shutting me out. Jack did that to her, turned her into someone I no longer recognized. Was he getting her hooked on drugs?