“Upset,” Joey whispered. “You’ve never been so upset? Do you remember when Leo broke up with me? It was all because of you. To save you and Rand from your lies. You ruined our lives, but who cares about us kids, right?”

“Oh, honey.” Bea stared at her hands. “I can’t believe…I didn’t know that was why Leo broke up with you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Really, I didn’t. Not at the time, at least. I didn’t realize Leo had seen us at Salto. Rand only told me later. And it was the year Grandfather died. I was a mess. I didn’t know what I could possibly do to fix things for you.”

“That’s why you guys never went back to Corfu, then?” Joey said, rolling the thought around in her head. “I thought it was in solidarity with me, that because I didn’t want to go back, you and Dad didn’t either. But—”

“It was Leo’s condition to Rand, for keeping our secret. Yes. I told your father it was time for a change of pace. That he was missing far too much of our time in Corfu. We—”

“You started going to Vermont for a couple of weeks in the summer.” They’d tried to convince her to join, suddenly all presidents of the Vermont Tourism Department. But Joey had been on a mission then, her quest to get into law school becoming her singular life purpose. Her dad had been so proud when she’d announced she wanted to try following in his footsteps.

“Oh, Joey, I’m so sorry for all of this. I can’t believe…oh God.”

Joey bit her lip. “Go back to the Rand story. I still don’t understand how it happened.”

Bea’s eyes went away somewhere. “Well, when we had to split that summer we met, Rand and I were a mess. We had to figure out a way to be together. We knew Rand couldn’t call. I was living at home then, going to Nova, so we decided he’d write and use a code name. Harry Berry.”

“Harry Berry,” Joey said, processing it.

“Yes, well, I never received a letter from Harry Berry. Every day, I came from summer session and looked through the mail on the table, and my mother said, Nothing for you, dear. I believed her. Well, what reason did I have not to? I didn’t hear from Rand. I didn’t hear from Harry Berry. I stopped eating.”

“You stopped eating.” The venom in Joey’s voice scared her.