“Not men, just you,” I said. “Especially when you’re offering an unsolicited bad opinion, but if a man who was, say, my doctor wanted to lecture me about my diet, I’d be okay with that.”

“Oh, a doctor.” Natan smiled, nodding in his oily, slow-motion way. “Western medicine strikes again. Those doctors just want to cover up illness and cause more with their pills. Food is the only medicine we need, sister.” He opened a jackknife, cut a huge hunk off a log of salami, and dropped it into his bearded head hole. “Paleo is the way to go, Muiriel. The way our original ancestors ate.”

“Yes, because Neanderthals thrived on carcinogenic nitrates in their lunch meat made of domesticated pigs,” Sean said. Natan shook his head and turned to wipe the knife on his pants.

My cheeks flushed. I moved nearer to Sean despite myself.

“How was Zola when she left?” he asked me, low.

“She was quiet,” I said. “Not good.”

“Well,” Natan said from eavesdropping central, “never can tell what a kid like that is up to.”

It was a day of failing to control my impulses. “A kid like what?” I said.

“Relax, sister, I’m not talking about you. A kid like Zola.”

“I am not your sister. Like what, Natan?”

“You know. Adopted.”

“Adopted is a past-tense verb, not an adjective, and Zola has not been adopted; she and I are in foster care.”

“Right…,” Natan said. “Well, see, that’s what I’m saying—whatever you did to get yourself put in the system, you’ve obviously worked hard to overcome your poor choices. Look at you! Holding down a job, going to school, staying out of trouble. You are the exception to the rule. Little Zola will choose to improve herself, or keep making mistakes—but it is her choice. Don’t get wrapped up in it.”

I stood.

“Muiriel,” Sean said, “I forgot to show you…a thing. Come on.” He grabbed my carrots, and I let him lead me to a boulder in the trees, away from Natan and his jackknife and the potential murder scene.

“Breathe,” Sean said, and we sat and ate in peace. “Maybe we should talk to Jane. Tell her we know why he’s here, say maybe she could figure out a way to get rid of him and not ruin her already-bizarre family dynamic. I hate that we know all that crap.”

“I hate Natan,” I said.

“I’m going to get us T-shirts made that say Jesus Christ, Natan, so we don’t have to talk to him anymore. He can just read our stock response to every single thing he says.”

“I was the one who got him going. Talking that shit about Zola, I swear to God…”

“You really worried about her?”

“I don’t know. Every day can be different; it’s hard to tell what’s going on.”