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Back The Wrong Family Save as PDF
Chapters (46)
  1. Praise
  2. Booklist
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. Part Two
  17. 11
  18. 12
  19. 13
  20. Part Three
  21. 14
  22. 15
  23. 16
  24. 17
  25. 18
  26. 19
  27. 20
  28. 21
  29. 22
  30. 23
  31. 24
  32. 25
  33. 26
  34. 27
  35. 28
  36. 29
  37. 30
  38. 31
  39. 32
  40. 33
  41. EPILOGUE
  42. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  43. Reader’s Guide
  44. Discussion Questions
  45. The Wrong Family Author Q & A
  46. The Wives

No, he really couldn’t. And since he’d called her spoiled within the first year of their marriage, she’d gotten to work, hadn’t she? He’d laughed at her when she spoke about the occasional dollar she passed to the homeless, had mocked her in one of his crueler moments. “You don’t care about homeless people,” he’d said. “You just have upper-middle-class shame you feel compelled to atone for!”

It was as if he’d issued some silent challenge to his wife. And so Winnie found herself working at Illuminations for two years. Two years of dedication to people less fortunate than she both in spirit and in bank. Two solid years. Before the incident.

He would have believed in her commitment to the cause, too, had she not done what she’d done. “The incident” was the name Nigel gave to it, but it was a weak word for what happened that night. It wasn’t an incident; it was a crime. One Winnie had committed.

10

JUNO

The autumn rain tapped incessantly against the windows in Winnie’s book nook. Juno settled into a chair with the book she’d started the day she fell. She’d bent the spine, and she regretted that; she had a deep respect for books. That entire day was a bit hazy in her memory. She hadn’t fallen since, but she knew that all it would take was falling the wrong way and her bones would snap like peanut brittle. She settled herself more firmly in her seat. No! There would be none of that. Juno was sick, sick as hell, and if she were careful, she could finish out her days without breaking a hip, or a leg, or whatever old people broke when they fell. As if on cue, Juno’s hip began to ache.

She was trying not to think about what she’d heard the night before as she lay in her own bed. You misheard, she’d told herself a hundred times since that morning. But she hadn’t misheard, and now those words were repeating themselves in her head like a goddamn two-year-old whining in a toy store. She rubbed little circles at her temples and tried to read the words on the page. But she wasn’t thinking about the story; it wasn’t fiction in which she wanted to immerse herself. It was the truth.