Bathroom doors are not impenetrable. Ezra eventually gets in and finds me on the floor, sobbing into the bath towel, vomit in the toilet. I let him pick me up off the floor and guide me to the couch in the living room. He brings me a glass of water and tells me to take deep breaths, but every time I try to explain, new waves of grief and anger roll through me, bringing more tears.

He paces in front of me until I can finally talk. It all comes rushing out as though I were accusing him, not his father and my mother. He shakes his head, refuses to believe it, so I get the cigar box, shake it in his face, and ask him why his father would have these things. I repeat every time that Willa mentioned the girl.

He is silent for a long time, just standing there studying my face until he can see it there in me—his father. “That bastard” is the first thing he says, and there is true venom in his words. “My mother couldn’t give him his own blood child, so he had one with another woman.”

“She definitely saw it, me, as the biggest betrayal of all. She said once, ‘If it hadn’t been for the girl, I could have forgiven him.’ ” I picture her that day in her living room, driven mad with anger and sadness, jealousy and regret. “I just had no idea that the girl was me, that I was the thing that was so unforgivable.”

MAY

The night that I sat tucked in a ball of shadow on the second-to-last step of the cottage staircase, I became a witness to all the betrayal. At first it was just my mother saying it was lies, all lies, that Willa was a jealous, crazy woman out to destroy her. Some French words slipped into her defense at times, which let me know that she was scared.

I assumed it was the affair she was denying, but then, in a strangely calm and composed voice, I heard my father say, “I did often wonder if June was really mine.” I thought I’d misheard him, but he went on. “The summer before she was born, you wouldn’t let me touch you. We didn’t have sex even once. Then you come back to the city, have me undressed before you’ve even unpacked, and lo and behold you get pregnant. And the baby is a month early. Can you believe it?” He laughed a bitter-sounding laugh. “I must give you credit, though, Avril. Getting pregnant by the caretaker and then making me believe all these years that she was mine. Pretty darn clever.”