She laughs while at the same time tears appear in her eyes. “Why are you doing this to me?” The tears being to fall now. “What do you want from me? I already gave you everything.” She points at me. “You took everything. All I have left is my son, and you can’t take him too. Do you understand?” She clenches her hands into fists. “I will not let you take him.”

I hear the kitchen door open, and seconds later the neighbor, Judy, appears in the living room, same blue sundress. “Well, what do we have here?” she says, even though it’s quite obvious. “June. Didn’t Ezra tell you to stay away from Willa while you were here?” She sounds like a kindergarten teacher who’s just arrived to break up a fight.

The fact that Ezra told Judy to keep me away from his mother stings. “Willa was out in the sun when I arrived,” I explain calmly, “without a hat and looking on the verge of sunstroke, so I just wanted to get her inside. I did look around for you, but you were nowhere to be seen, so I took it upon myself to get her out of the sun.” I can’t help but get that little dig in.

Willa suddenly stands up, her eyes locked on me and wild. “You stay away from my boy,” she says loudly, white spit collecting at the sides of her mouth. “You stay away from him, do you hear me?”

Judy swoops in and takes Willa’s arm. “Don’t you worry, dear,” she says to Willa. “June’s not going to go near your boy. Ezra’s fine. Just fine.”

“It’s the girl,” Willa says, calmer now. “It’s all because of her.”

Judy gives me a quizzical look, and I just shrug in response. “What girl is that, Willa?” she asks, turning back to face her friend.

Willa lifts her arm and points at me. “That girl. She’s the one.”

Judy motions for me to go into the kitchen and goes back to talking to Willa in a soft, soothing voice, ignoring the talk about the girl. She leads her out of the living room and toward what I assume is Willa’s bedroom. I hear a door close and then only low murmuring.

Not sure what else to do, I flop down at the kitchen table and try to sort through Willa’s wild ramblings to see if anything rings true. She clearly wants me to stay away from Ezra, but what mother wouldn’t want their son to stay away from the daughter of the woman who had an affair with her husband? The girl, though—I can’t figure out why she said I was the girl or what that even means.

“I gave her a sedative,” Judy says, coming into the kitchen, interrupting my thoughts. “She’s out for the count for hours.”

“I really was only trying to help,” I say, a little too defensively. “She could have gotten heatstroke out there.”