But mostly, I’m enjoying dining out in public, something I can’t do in New York anymore. The press became relentless, so my family stopped leaving the building. Meals, stylists, and masseuses come to us. One night, we risked dinner in a restaurant tucked on a side street. All five of us went, even Billy. It was fine until Nate drank too much and Lawrence berated him for acting sloppy.

“There is a lot riding on this, Nathaniel.”

Lawrence was so furious I could feel heat rise off his skin. People were staring, and his mouth was twisted into a rictus smile.

But it was Billy who pushed back, not Nate. “Fuck you, Dad,” he said before stomping off. “Fuck you, too, Cassie.”

“What was that about?” Lawrence asked.

“Brother-sister shit.” I stared into my plate. “I ask too many questions about Diana Holly, I have no boundaries, and I should mind my own business. Or something like that.”

I was shaken by Billy’s vicious tone; he never would’ve lashed out when we were younger. Now he’s easily angered, and quick to turn on me. I understand how scared he is—I’m scared too—but I thought this horrible experience would bring us closer again. Instead, it’s pulling us further apart. Why can’t it be the same as it was when we were kids?

“More coffee, Cassie?” Eddie asks, holding a pot.

“Oh my gosh.” I giggle like a silly girl. “I’m already buzzing! Just water, thank you.”

“Your food will be ready in a minute. I’m sure you’re starving.”

Oh, Eddie, I think. You have no idea.

My conversations with Eddie are pleasant, non-threatening. I don’t worry about subtext or hidden meanings. Lawrence has warned me about men. “Not every boy has honorable intentions,” he told me, in the awkward, stilted way that fathers have when discussing sex with their daughters. “You need to be smarter. Stay two steps ahead.” As I got older, our talks got easier, mostly because they were science-based and cerebral. My takeaway was that men, boys, are always on the hunt; whether conscious of it (feral) or not (submissive). Their brains are more developed than other warm-blooded vertebrates, but they’re mammals fueled by testosterone, which primes instincts like dominance and self-affirmation. Sexual satisfaction is hardwired, and they’ll achieve it by aggression, deception, or both. Women who don’t see the world through the lens of men’s needs are naïve or willfully blind.

Eddie is getting a master’s in comparative literature. The first time he brought out my food, I was reading The Shining. The next time, Song of Solomon. The next time, The Secret History. It became a joke between us: What is Cassie reading this morning?

“I should introduce you to my wife.” He glances at the cover of Middlemarch.

I feel a shiver, like the wind has shifted. “Your wife?”