I tried to read it back to front, searching for the ending. Whatever Aidy thought she held over my head made her bolder than she’d ever been with me. I shuffled through all the things she might know, deciding she must’ve figured out that I’d broken into Marley’s the night of the memorial. That would make her upset. And she was likely waiting for the right time to confront me. Why it gave her such a sense of power over me, I wasn’t sure.

I decided to bet all my cards on this guess and told my mom, “Nah, don’t worry about it, Aidy’s probably right.”

“Oh, I am,” Aidy agreed.

My dad came home. He gave my mom a quick peck, and hugs to Aidy and me. “What’ve you girls been up to all day? Mom told me you made your calls like we asked.” There was a hint of accusation in his tone.

“They’re coming up with donation bags,” Mom told him. She tried to sound dry, suspicious even, to temper her obvious happiness, but it was clear she felt pride. So much of it that regret started churning in my gut.

Dad examined Aidy first, then me. I took an instinctive step back, afraid he’d see beneath the makeup on my face. “Be sure to put them out front.” The peculiar emphasis crawled out of his mouth as a threat.

“Hon, I was gonna throw a pizza in, if that works for you,” Mom said to him. She leaned her head on his shoulder to spread more warmth our way. She seemed to believe she’d somehow law-of-attractioned this harmony into her life. “Unless you wanted to get dinner together? We haven’t done that in a while.”

He gave us a curious look. “Without the girls?”

“I was thinking all four of us.”

“Let’s do a date night instead.” Dad turned to Aidy and me. “What’s a few more hours without Mom and me here?”

Mom smiled. It wasn’t belief. She saw all of this as proof that through sheer intention alone, all trouble within our family had been fixed. “Let me throw on something nicer!” she said as she flitted out of the kitchen.

Aidy and I moved to stand side by side. As plagued as we were by secrets, we still united against the unknown that was Dad’s mood, which added more regret to the flooding pool at the bottom of my stomach.

Once Mom was out of earshot, Dad spoke. “I found something in the backyard.” He stepped closer. “A bag of filthy clothes. Ring any bells?”

My jaw clenched so hard it felt like my teeth might break. I was waiting for Aidy to rat me out. This was my fault. Surely she wouldn’t let our dad believe anything different.

“The shirt had blood on it,” Dad continued. “Someone needs to explain to me why that is.”