“All I’ve done this past year is try to help my daughter, and now we have to go stay with Stew’s parents because the court won’t let Ava be with me unless I’m supervised, like I’m some criminal. We’re all crammed in on each other and now I feel like my in-laws are always watching me. It’s so humiliating!”

I thought about Stewart’s retired parents and their tiny two-bedroom house in Hayden. Adding two adults and a baby would be close quarters indeed. My parents had reached out to the Grangers, but they’d seemed wary and hadn’t returned their calls. And who knew what Penny was telling them? The Grangers were simple, unsophisticated people who treasured their quiet, small-town life. Penny was smarter than all of them put together.

“You could stay with Mom and Dad, couldn’t you? At least they have more space.” I wanted Penny to be with my parents; the Grangers had no idea what they were dealing with. I was fantasizing about some scenario in which my sister was forced to retreat to my parents, who seemed like the only ones who could help Penny understand that she was sick, who could help her and in turn help Ava.

“After what Mom did? Are you kidding me?”

“She didn’t know they were going to call CPS, Pen, she was just worried. We’ve all been worried.”

Penny’s sobs abated suddenly.

“Worried about Ava or worried about me with Ava?”

Into the eerie silence that opened came a rush of all the small moments that had built up over a lifetime with Penny, releasing themselves all at once into my bloodstream. I stared at the wall. I was in our third bedroom, where Blair sometimes crashed, where my parents stayed when they came to visit. For some reason, the generic vintage prints of Park City advertisements struck me as absurd, like I couldn’t believe that this was what I was looking at in this moment. I suppose I knew it was a point of no return. Penny had never come visit me in Park City, despite my many offers to send her a plane ticket. She’d been drifting away for years.

“Penny, I think you need help.”

“What the fuck does that mean, Katie?” Her voice was calm and sharp, the tears from moments ago long gone.

I burst into my own tears of desperation. “Penny, I love you, we all love you. But you need help. We’re so worried about you.” Even then, I couldn’t say the words themselves; I couldn’t name it.

“You knew,” she said, her voice turning to ice. “You knew Mom was going to the doctors. You probably all sat around and talked about it. Goddamn it, it’s always been like this, the three of you against me.”