39

LEXIE

Sam insists that we at least try to find her, although we both know it’s pointless. We drive all the way across the city to the trailer. It’s the only place I can think to look, but I know as soon as we turn into her street that she’s not there—the lights are off. I bang on the door anyway and think seriously about smashing my way in. Sam leaves the car eventually and he takes my hand.

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” he promises. I scrawl a note on the back of a receipt and jam it in her door, but even as we drive away I keep glancing over my shoulder, hoping to see some sign of movement in the trailer. I don’t even know if she’s come back to Montgomery. The clinic is all the way up in Auburn, and she has no money at all. How would she even get here?

The ride home feels much longer than the drive to the trailer, because at least there was a small piece of hope that we’d find her. Now Sam and I sit in a silence that is punctuated only occasionally by a gurgle or coo from the back seat. Daisy is an unspoken question between us. At some point, I’m going to have to ask it aloud.

What do we do with Daisy?

“It’s going to be okay,” Sam says, and I know his intentions are good, but the throwaway phrase irritates me.

“Really? How?”

“She’ll turn up, Lexie.”

“Sure, Sam. Sure she’ll turn up. In a fucking body bag or a jail cell.”

I hear his sharp intake of breath and I know that he’s hurt by my sharp tone, and I squeeze my eyes shut and try to bring my emotions back under control. Everything feels so confused. Sam is my refuge, but Sam is irritating me. Annie is the cause of all of this pain, but she’s the one I’m most concerned for.

And then there’s Daisy. Beautiful, innocent Daisy. She’s safe and well, but she’s actually the victim here.

“Sorry,” I whisper, and my eyes are still closed but Sam’s hand lands gently on my knee.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I just wish there was something more I could say. But there isn’t.”

“No,” I whisper. “There really isn’t.”

I finally open my eyes so that I can stare out at the road as Sam steers the car toward home. There’s a cacophony of questions bouncing around in my mind—endless “what-ifs” and “why didn’t I’s?” and even a few “if only she...” But it’s just so hopeless, and now I’m thinking back on my optimism over the last few weeks and realizing just how much harder this hurts because I finally let myself hope that Annie might be getting better.

* * *

There is nothing to do but wait. Other than Daisy’s still-regular hospital visits, my days now revolve around which of two terrible phone calls is going to come.

Will it be the police letting me know she’s been picked up?

Or will it be Annie—inevitably high and in a panic about what she’s done?

Several days crawl past me. I phone Mom, just in case Annie reaches out to her.

“She left,” I say.

“But...didn’t she have to stay? For the judge?”

“Yes.”

“Why did they let her leave?”

“It wasn’t a prison, Mom. Annie had to stay to avoid being charged, but she could leave anytime she wanted.”

“But...you said it was going well.” Mom is confused and disappointed, and I completely understand.

“Mom, you know what she’s like.”

“I don’t know what she’s like anymore. Until you called me and told me she’d had the baby, I thought she was thriving.”

“Well, maybe if you left your cult every now and again to come and be with us you’d know our lives a bit better.”

“Alexis, that is so unfair.”

Everything about this situation feels unfair, but I know I shouldn’t have said that to Mom. I sigh and look down at Daisy, who is resting on my thighs, watching me.

“I’m sorry, Mom. She’s in so much trouble this time, I don’t think there’s anything we can do for her.”

“Robert says that she will come back to the Lord in time,” Mom whispers, but even she doesn’t sound convinced anymore.

* * *

There’s a knock at the door four days after Annie walked out of rehab, and when I answer it, Mary Walters is standing there. Her hair is in a bun, and she’s wearing the same cheap suit. She holds her clipboard up against her body like it’s part of her uniform.

I’m wearing pajamas and I can’t remember the last time I brushed my hair, and I flush because I know this is not a friendly visit—it’s surely an unannounced welfare check. Maybe she’s even here to gloat, because I’m sure that this woman has been anticipating this moment since the first time we met.

“Dr. Vidler,” Mary says brightly. I hesitate before I meet her gaze. If I see triumph there, I’m not sure how I’ll contain myself. I take a deep breath and force myself to look into her eyes.

All I see is sadness, and the air leaves my lungs in a rush.

“Hi,” I say, and I feel completely humbled. Mary’s smile is kind, and I remember thinking that perhaps I might have liked her, had we met under other circumstances. Looking at her now, I have no doubt her intentions are good.

“Just wanted to visit and see how you’re doing. And to check in on beautiful little Daisy, of course,” Mary says warmly.

I let her in, and this time there is no opportunity to hide the piles of laundry or clear the tables, and the little stain near the sink is the least of my worries. I make cups of tea, and we sit on the sofa, and Mary holds Daisy and comments at how well she looks and then she asks me a series of questions about our routine and Daisy’s health. And when the tea is gone, and Daisy really needs to go down for a nap, Mary stands to leave and finally addresses the elephant in the room.

“I really hoped I was wrong, you know,” she says quietly. “About your sister. I sure am sorry that things have gone the way they have.”

“Me, too,” I say as my throat constricts.

“I just want to say one thing to you, Dr. Vidler. I’m sure that right now this situation feels as dire as can be, but even with your sister in a whole world of trouble, your situation is still one of the easier ones I’ll deal with this year.” As I gape at her incredulously, she shrugs. “I don’t have any other substance-abuse cases on my books where the children have slotted right into a well-established, caring home that can afford to provide for all of their needs. The vast majority of my drug cases end with the momma in prison and the babies in foster care, and I don’t need to tell you that arrangement rarely leads to positive outcomes for anyone.”

“So why prosecute them?” I ask her unevenly. “Why do they think that sending a woman to jail under these circumstances is going to help anyone?”

“Well, if I can say something just between you and me for just a moment...”

I’m surprised, but I nod.

“Of course.”

“We hold our pregnant woman on a pedestal in this society. We say we want the best thing for babies, so we want to tell their mommas what to eat, what they can drink, what drugs they can use...and there’s good intentions there, and maybe it’s the kind of thing that’s too nuanced to draw lines across but...for sure there’s a vein of misogyny here, too. Women who use drugs in pregnancy have fallen off the pedestal, and don’t we all just love to punish them for that?”

Mary glances at Daisy, and then back to me, and she adds quietly, “In the last few years I’ve heard all sorts of politicians talking about compassion for people with addiction, but you know what I’ve never heard? No one ever talks about compassion for women who are pregnant and have addictions. Maybe we’re progressing to the point that we realize that a raging addiction isn’t exactly a lifestyle choice, but we’re worlds away from applying that same logic to women who happen to be pregnant. We want our mommas to be perfect, and when they stumble and fall, we punish them instead of offer a helping hand, and then we call it deterrence.”

Mary slips her handbag onto her shoulder and she straightens her suit jacket as I digest this, and then she adds very quietly, “If you ask me, if the state really wanted to help women like your sister, wouldn’t they put the thousands of dollars they’ll spend on her trial and incarcerating her into early intervention programs, or research into addiction? Or Lord, if it’s really all about the baby—wouldn’t you funnel the funds into setting up a better foster care system or maybe some parenting classes that actually help?”

“So why don’t they?” I ask, and Mary sighs and shakes her head.

“Well, it’s a little bit like this. Half the town is on fire, and the townspeople are all so busy hollering for the fire brigade that no one thinks to find out why people are still playing with matches.”

I’m still untangling that analogy hours after Mary is gone. One thing I know for sure, though, is that although she’s played a part in the process that’s led to Annie’s current situation, Mary Walters is not the enemy. She is a well-intentioned cog in the wheel of a system that is just not up to its task.

* * *

A few days later, Bernie tells me that the arrest warrant has been issued.

“If you hear from her now,” she warns me, “you need to call it in. Immediately. And if she comes to your house, turn her away—or at least, take her straight to a police station. Harboring a fugitive is a felony in Alabama—so if you are in any way seen to be protecting her, you can be charged, too. The last thing little Daisy needs is for the both of you to wind up behind bars.”

My role has changed now that Annie is officially on the run. Until now, I’ve been an important player in this scenario—as a support person to Annie and as stand-in mother to Daisy. But that was when Annie’s chemical endangerment charge was theoretical, and now it’s a cold, hard fact that we need to deal with. Annie is a fugitive, and my obligations shift from the moral realm to the legal one.

If she dares to contact me, I have no choice but to turn her in. Because if I don’t—if I help her to hide—then I’ll fail at those other, more important roles as her supporter and as Daisy’s caretaker. When I first hang up with Bernie, I’m certain that even if Annie walked through my front door right now, I’d struggle to call the police or take her to the station. But once I grapple with it, I realize that it’s all out of my hands now. I have to prioritize Daisy’s welfare.

So I stop hoping and praying that Annie will contact me, and start hoping and praying that she won’t—because our relationship has somehow survived a million ups and downs and twists and turns, but I’m pretty sure this would be the thing that shatters it.

* * *

More days pass and the stable routine Daisy and I have starts to wobble a little. I worry that she’s feeding off my anxiety. Her mild irritability builds slowly, until one night, she simply won’t be settled. I take her downstairs so that Sam can get some sleep, and then I pace the halls for hours. I sing, I rock, I swaddle—but nothing works. I can get her to sleep in my arms, but as soon as I try to put her down, the crying starts all over again.

When the morning finally comes, I’m so tired I feel sick. My limbs are heavy, and I can barely keep my eyes open through my thumping headache.

When Sam comes downstairs, he takes one look at me on the couch with Daisy and he heads straight to the coffee machine. He returns with two steaming mugs, which he sets on the coffee table, then gently gestures that he wants to take Daisy from my arms.

“You should have woken me up. I could have helped.”

“You have to work today. I can sit around the house and be a cranky, tired mess,” I say, but I gratefully pass the baby to him and reach for the coffee. “I think she’s upset because I am. I just couldn’t calm her.”

Sam frowns as he adjusts her in his arms, then he gently touches his palm to her forehead and looks at me hesitantly.

“You know she has a fever, right?”

“You’re joking.” I touch her forehead and groan. Suddenly I notice everything else that I’ve missed over these hours—the sniffly nose and the slight hoarseness to her cry—both of which I had blamed on the endless hours of crying. “She has a cold.”

Sam chuckles and nods.

I shut my eyes and groan. “How did I miss that?”

“Sleep deprivation and stress, honey,” Sam says. “She just needs some acetaminophen and she’ll be fine.”

I make a quick trip to the drugstore while Sam stays home with Daisy. It occurs to me as I’m driving away that this is actually the first time I’ve left them alone together, and it doesn’t seem like a big deal at all—not given everything else that’s going on in our lives. Sam is such a natural at this—so much more than I am. I really need to let him be more involved with Daisy. It will do her so much good.

After administering a dose of medicine, I cuddle Daisy back to sleep while Sam dresses for work. When he returns to the living room, he sits beside me again and slides his arm around my shoulders. We stare down at the baby—already she’s more settled, and now I feel guilty that it took me so long to pick up on something so obvious.

“This suits you,” Sam says suddenly.

I scoff at him.

“It suits me? She had a fever this morning and I didn’t notice.”

Sam shrugs.

“You know what sleep deprivation can do. I just mean in general, you’re doing such a great job. I didn’t think I could love you any more than I already did, but...there’s something about the way you are with her...it’s a side to you I didn’t know was there. I feel lucky I’ve had this chance to see you playing mommy.”

He rests his head against mine, and my tiredness fades, and just for a moment all I feel is the love I have for Sam. It is the biggest and best part of me. It surges in moments like this, until it seems bigger than both of us. I glance down at Daisy—and I know that somehow, even if she sleeps fitfully in my arms, she benefits from being around people who love each other like Sam and I do. I sigh, and I’m somehow simultaneously content and exhausted, ignoring entirely all of the external craziness that Annie has brought into our lives. I’m still not brave enough to ask Sam what his thoughts are on Daisy’s future, but just for the moment, we feel like a real family.

Sam kisses the side of my head and moves to release me.

“I have to go to work,” he murmurs, but I turn to him and whisper, “Just a moment longer?”

He smiles and pulls me against his chest, and I close my eyes and sink back into the moment. We are safe and all of my problems are a million miles away. Everything else will be fine, eventually—as long as I have Sam.

When several minutes pass and Sam gently moves away, I open my eyes just in time to see the shadow of movement at the living room window. It startles me enough that I let out an involuntary squeal.

“What’s wrong?” Sam frowns.

“There’s someone at the window.”

Sam runs to throw the front door open, and he peers out into the street before he turns back to me and shrugs.

“There’s no one there, Lex.”

I carefully rest Daisy on the bouncer and run out into the yard.

“There was,” I throw over my shoulder. “It must have been Annie.” I’m standing on the front lawn now, looking this way and that, and I can’t see a thing—so I shout, “Annie!”

“Lexie, keep your voice down, it’s eight in the morning—” Sam protests, but I shush him and run to look behind the bushes in our yard, and then out onto the road. She’s gone, but somehow, I know it was her.

“Are you sure?” Sam asks, and he runs out after me, but I point back to the door.

“Stay with Daisy, just for a minute?”

I run to the end of our street, then back past the house and to the other end. I try to remember exactly what it was I saw in the window, but it was just a shadow. I shouldn’t be so sure it belonged to my sister—but somehow, I am. Now, though, she is long gone, and I return to our house, dragging my feet, confused and disappointed and simultaneously a little relieved. I wonder if Annie even knows that if she visits, I’ll have to turn her in.

Sam is sitting on the couch close to Daisy, and he looks up at me expectantly. I shake my head and sit beside him.

“It’s probably for the best,” Sam says carefully. “If she comes here...”

“I know.” I sigh. “I’ll call the police.”

“Do you want me to call in sick or something?” he asks, but he’s reluctant, and I shake my head.

“I’ll be okay.”

* * *

I decide to take Daisy to the pediatrician just to be sure that her fever isn’t a sign of something more serious. I dress her and strap her into the car seat, but I’m still not great at estimating how long it takes us to get ready, and we are already running a few minutes late by the time I get to the front door.

Inevitably, I hear the shrill ring of the landline right at that moment.

The landline. Only one person calls that number.

I consider ignoring it. It’s Annie for sure, but the pediatrician has squeezed us into a slot between appointments and it’s a half-hour drive to get to his office—there’s really only enough time for me to get in the car and go if we’re going to make the booking. I try to figure out what should be my priority—my sick sister, or my sick niece.

I answer the phone.

“I wasn’t going to bother you, but I have to see her,” Annie says without identifying herself.

“I can’t see you. Bernie told me not to—she said to tell you to go straight to the police department. You have to turn yourself in.”

“I don’t know what to do, Lexie. I’m so scared.”

I can hear the terror and confusion in her voice. She’s alone, and she’s frightened, and there is nothing I can do to help her.

“Honey, you have to go to the police,” I whisper, my throat tightening. “I have to take Daisy to her doctor’s appointment now, and I have to hang up the phone. I can’t talk to you—if I’m in contact with you while that arrest warrant is out, I can get in trouble, too.”

“Lexie, this is one last favor—then I promise you I’ll stay out of your hair until I have my shit sorted out. I just need to say goodbye to her.” Her voice breaks, and then she’s pleading, her dignity gone. “I need to h-hold her one last time. I’m begging you, Lexie. Please don’t let me down.”

Annie is distraught and it tears at me, but I’m worn down by the drama and the endless take-take-take of my sister and her addiction. As hard as it is, I know I simply have to hang up on her and I have to do it again, and again—for as long as she keeps calling me, until she’s ready to accept responsibility for her situation and take herself to the police.

“No,” I say quietly, and then I lift the phone away from my ear and move to hang it up.

“Lexie!” she screams my name between sobs. And I choke back tears of my own. I hesitate one last moment, just long enough to hear her choke, “Please, Lexie. Please, I need this so much—”

And then I hang up and I take Daisy for her checkup.

* * *

I miss the appointment, and Daisy and I sit in the waiting room for over an hour until her doctor finds another window to squeeze us in. This gives me plenty of time to reflect on the fact that Annie actually contacted me at last, and I hung up on her.

I’ve done exactly what I was supposed to do, so why do I feel so sick about it? I relive the conversation in my mind, and I’m sure that I missed something. Was there some opportunity that I didn’t take, some magic phrase I could have said to convince her to go to the police? Not that I’m convinced that would make her situation any better, but surely the sooner she accepts her fate, the more leniency the judge will give her at sentencing.

I think back again—what else did I say? What else did she say? Were there clues about her location, hints of her state of mind? She was clearly desperate; did I offer her any comfort at all? Then it hits me, and there’s sudden ice in my veins.

Did I tell her I love her? There wasn’t time. I was in a panic, adrenaline was surging through me and I was so conscious of Daisy’s appointment. I said a lot of words to her, but I missed the only ones that really mattered.

I love you, Annie.

Why didn’t I tell her? That no matter what mistakes she makes, she’s still my Annie—my baby sister, and all of my other thoughts and feelings about our present situations are only noise around that fact. I could have said it so easily. I could have said it casually, a rushed love you, Annie before I hung up on her, or I could have cut off some of her ramblings and said it slowly, carefully. I hope you know that I love you, Annie, and I always will.

Instead, I shut her down, and I hung up the phone.

By the time Daisy’s pediatrician calls us in, I’ve worked myself up into knots. When he asks me what happened, I stare at him blankly and he prompts me, “With Daisy, Alexis. Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I say, and I shake myself and explain Daisy’s irritability and the fever and my cluelessness. When I’m done, her doctor confirms Sam’s diagnosis.

Daisy simply has her first cold, and we just need to ride it out.

“You’d think that I’d have noticed it a bit quicker,” I mutter, and her doctor laughs at me.

“Playing mom requires a whole other skill set than playing doctor. You’ll figure it out.”

Once we’re back in the car, I sit behind the steering wheel and I make a plan for the afternoon. We’ll go back home, I’ll keep giving Daisy her medication, put a vaporizer on in her room and try to take a nap in the rocking chair beside her cot.

I start the car and drive to the parking lot exit, and then I ignore every single decision I just made and turn toward Annie’s trailer.

* * *

Daisy is in the car seat, hooked under my arm as I walk toward the door of the trailer. I’m well aware that the right thing to do is to go home. I should call Bernie, and ask her if I should call the police.

But I’m not going to do either one of those things. Instead, I’m going to let Annie see Daisy, and then I’m going to beg her to willingly go to the police; but even if she refuses, I’ll leave the decision in her hands. Any alternative course of action would be a betrayal of her trust, and a message that I have given up on her.

Perhaps her life is already completely out of control, but I need to show her that I still believe in her. I have to believe she is still capable of doing the right thing, even now, when the right thing is accepting the extent of her mess and turning herself in. For all of the complexities of our relationship and my frustration with her, even for all of the times when I have resented her and despaired for her, I could never give up on Annie. Until my last breath, I’ll be waiting for her to turn things around.

Now, I approach the door of her trailer and my palms are sweaty because this is one of those pivotal moments in our relationship. It’s me reaching out, and I’m doing it because I need to, and maybe because she needs me to, as well. I just want to see Annie, and I want her to see Daisy. I don’t even know if she will be here, but I know that I had to try. I’m out of solutions. I’m out of ideas. My mind keeps flashing back to that night just two months earlier when I made this trip with Sam in the small hours. It’s funny how so much has happened, but nothing has really changed.

At the door, I lift my fist to knock and then I see that it’s slightly ajar. I knock anyway, but there is no answer.

“Annie?” I call, and I wait. There is no sound from inside the trailer, so I call again, and my heart sinks a little. Maybe she was here, but she’s already left. Maybe if I’d just been more supportive a few hours ago, she would have stuck around. I push the door open and stick my head inside, and then I see her.

She’s on the bed, in nearly the same position she was resting in two months ago when we were here the first time. She’s lying on her back, but her head is limp against the pillow. There’s a tourniquet on her arm, and a needle in her vein. There is something all around her mouth—vomit?

She’s still and she’s gray.

Everything happens in slow motion from that moment. I fling the door open all the way and I move inside, but I pause to very carefully set Daisy’s car seat on the dining room table as if everything in the world is just fine—but it’s not, it’s just not, and somehow I already know that it’s never going to be fine again.

I’m shaking violently as I reach for Annie—but her skin is too cool to my touch and I know that it’s too late but it can’t be—it just can’t be—so I untie the tourniquet and I throw the syringe against the wall with violent force and fury. I take her shoulders and I shake her again and again and she’s limp—why is she so limp? I’m screaming at her, and now Daisy is crying, too.

I lay Annie back onto the bed then fumble in my bag for Narcan—but I stopped carrying it last year. I thought I didn’t need it anymore. Why couldn’t I just keep it in there, just in case? I call 911 and as I press the phone to my ear, I start compressions on Annie’s frail chest.

“My sister.” I’m sobbing, hysterical—spewing indecipherable words into the phone. It can’t end like this. I can’t lose her like this. Why didn’t I tell her I loved her? Did she do this on purpose? Is this my fault? I’ve failed her. I’ve failed my baby sister.

“Fire, ambulance or police, ma’am?”

“Paramedics. Paramedics!”

Someone else is on the phone now—the paramedic dispatcher. She is asking for the address and I can’t remember it. I only know how to get here—so I’m stammering the cross streets and her trailer number and I’m still doing chest compressions and trying to force air into her lifeless lungs between nonsensical sentences. Her chest isn’t rising. It isn’t working.

“Help me, please help me.”

“Is someone else there?” the operator asks, and I’m blabbering like a baby and my tears are all over Annie’s face. I brush them away with my wrist as I try again to breathe air and warmth and life into my sister. Then, as I’m compressing her chest again, the sound of Daisy’s screaming registers and I whisper, “The baby is here. Oh God, she’s here and Annie is...”

“Ma’am, is the baby okay?” the operator asks me urgently. “Try to stay calm. The paramedics are only six minutes away.”

“That’s too long!” I shake Annie again. “Please don’t leave me, Annie, please—I’m so sorry—”

I try more compressions, but then I hear her rib crack and I pull my hands violently back from her chest and drop the phone onto the floor as I do. But I can’t actually stop the compressions—she needs oxygen to her brain, and every second that I delay will mean more brain damage. So I keep right on with the CPR. I tell myself that I have to stop crying now and save my breath for Annie. Two breaths, fifteen compressions, two breaths, fifteen compressions. It’s too late—on some level I know this, but I keep going because I can’t and I won’t be the one to give up on her. Daisy’s cries echo all around us in the filthy, freezing trailer. She should be home in the warmth. She should be anywhere but here.

I’m vaguely aware of the flashing lights and siren of the ambulance outside, but I keep going until someone pulls me gently aside. Feeling helpless, I go to Daisy and I pick her up to console her—she’s purple-faced from the bellowing—and I press my face into her neck, as if she could comfort me.

But then...the frantic activity I’m waiting for never starts. The male paramedic is dialing on a cell phone; the woman is sorting through a medical bag.

“Is she okay?” I ask, and I’m bewildered. I look at Annie, and her lips are purple, and her skin is still that waxy-gray color. She is gone. I know that she is gone. But I won’t believe it. Someone has to fix this. I have to fix this. What can I do? I have to convince them. I can’t let them stop.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” the woman says softly.

“Why aren’t you working on her?” I demand, and they exchange a glance.

“We’re not going to commence CPR. It’s just too late.”

“Narcan—adrenaline—you have a defibrillator—” I start to sob, but the female paramedic shakes her head.

“Ma’am, she’s clearly been gone for some time. There’s nothing we can do.”

“No...”

“Perhaps we should take your baby outside?” the male paramedic suggests carefully, and I’m wild-eyed and frantic—my baby? I look at Daisy, and I start to sob again, because oh God, she has just lost everything and she’s not even old enough to understand. The female paramedic stands and gently steers me toward the door as I hear the male paramedic on his phone. He is speaking in a whisper, but even over my sobs, I hear him.

“Yeah, we’ve got a DOA here—another fucking junkie. I hate these cases—”

I stop so abruptly that the female paramedic collides with my back. I turn stiffly to face the inside of the trailer and a raw, primal scream bursts from my mouth.

“No!”

He turns to me, shocked, and the female paramedic takes a step back as if I’m a physical threat. I know they are only human, and addiction wears medical professionals down, and I’ve probably thought the same thing myself—but this is not a faceless patient—this is the little girl who used to fall asleep in the bed next to mine. The girl who used to keep her journal tucked in beside her face like a teddy bear. She had hopes and dreams and she had talents and flaws and she is—was—everything to me.

This is Annie; my Annie. Anne Elizabeth Vidler. How can they reduce this life that mattered to me to a single label?

I look between the paramedics and then I stare the man down.

“She is not a junkie,” I choke. “She is my sister.”

They stare right back at me. They don’t know that I understand their disgust, but they need to know that she was a person, with history and potential and worth, and despite all of the bad decisions and all of the mess and pain of her life, she deserved a better end to her story than this.

I step out into the cold and I walk away from the trailer. I’m wailing, and people are coming out from the other trailers, and a stranger asks if she can help me and I can’t form the words to answer her. For a moment or two, I pace around the filth outside Annie’s trailer, but then Daisy’s screaming penetrates the fog of my shock and I remember that she’s actually sick.

It is just too cold for Daisy out here, but we can’t go back inside the trailer, and even if we did, it’s not much warmer. So I take the baby into my car, and I sit behind the wheel. I run the heater to warm her up and I hold her so tightly against me as I sob.

I have to ring Mom.

I have to ring Sam.

My phone is inside the trailer, on the floor. I can’t go back inside.

Time loses all meaning. A police car comes, and the coroner, and I watch all of these people crowd into Annie’s pitiful trailer and I just can’t bear it. I almost convince myself this isn’t happening; this whole morning just can’t be real. This must be a nightmare—have I fallen asleep on the couch?

I start performing an autopsy on this moment—a postmortem of my failure. Did Annie do this on purpose? How did it even come to this? Where did I go wrong? Why couldn’t I help her? Why didn’t I just agree to visit her with Daisy? How could beautiful, clever little Annie come to this end—dying alone in this pathetic trailer park—all of that beauty and creativity lost to the world forever...lost to me...lost to Daisy?

Why didn’t I tell her I loved her? That would have made the difference, I’m sure of it. How am I going to live with myself? How can I contact Sam? How can I tell Mom? I can’t stop crying. This feels worse than when Dad died, because when Dad died, I had to be strong for Annie and Mom. There is Daisy this time, but it feels different—maybe I’m Daisy’s, but she’s not yet mine in the way that Mom and Annie were. But what will happen to her? Am I really all she has now?

I’ll fail her, too. No one should trust me to care for this baby. A police officer approaches me, and I want him to handcuff me and throw me in prison—for failing your sister, when the only thing you ever needed to do was take care of her. Instead, he gently opens the car door and asks me sadly, “Ma’am? Is there someone we can call for you?”

I asked Annie that question once, and there was no one. I was all she had in the world, and I let her down.

I nod frantically and look toward the trailer. More people are crowding in. There’s police tape going up around it.

“My phone is on the floor of the trailer. His name is Sam.” My voice sounds artificial, high-pitched and feeble, and now my teeth are chattering. Annie’s teeth did that, just seven weeks ago, in the C-section, and I told her it was going to be okay.

I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. It’s not okay. It’s never going to be okay.

Forgive me, Annie. I love you.

The officer is still staring at me and I’m not sure he understood me, so I focus as hard as I can and I clear my throat and I say, “Please call Sam Hawke. His number is on speed dial on my phone, which is on the trailer floor.”

“Okay, ma’am,” the officer says, and I watch him walk away. I take an inventory of my physical situation. Daisy is in my arms, gradually calming at last. She is warm against my body, but not too warm. She is okay.

Annie is dead, but Daisy is okay. I repeat this as a mantra for several minutes, thinking I can force myself to accept it. This doesn’t work. I still feel like I’m dreaming, and in the moments after I acknowledge this, I almost convince myself that I am.

But my heart is still racing and I’m still panting even now that I’m completely still, and my hands are numb, and as I catalog these things I diagnose myself with physiological shock and I force my best physician’s voice into my internal monologue and I assure myself that with a bit of time, the sense of dissociation will pass and I’ll be okay.

Then I remember again that Annie is dead and I’m off again on the roller coaster of early grief; this time all I can think of is about how many times I’ve considered this moment inevitable, and how that doesn’t make it any easier, but it should. I have had years to prepare for this. I should have had a mental coping kit all packed and ready to go.

But I don’t, and it’s unbearable, and just when I start to feel so alone that I could almost panic just because my sister is dead, I see Sam burst through the crowd. He throws the car door open and he kneels on the ground beside me, and his face is blanched with shock and pain.

“Lexie,” he whispers. “Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”

I work my jaw, and I can’t make any words come out—but I have just enough sense to gently pass him Daisy and to step out of the car and away from them before I throw up.

* * *

I give a statement to the police officer and then we wait for the coroner to finish. Sam wants to take Daisy straight home once the police say I’m free to go, but I can’t leave—not while Annie is still inside. So we wait, and they do whatever it is they need to do, and then I watch the coronial staff carry the body board down the stairs. I am sobbing again, but even in my grief I notice how easy it is for them to lift her. It is as if she was nothing at all.

Then Sam asks again if we can go, more insistently this time, and I finally agree. He drives my car—we leave his at the trailer park. At some point, we will need to go back and get it, if it’s not stolen in the meantime. I sit beside him in the passenger seat, and my knees feel stiff, because I’ve been sitting in the same position for hours. I keep thinking about Annie’s shoulders and how limp they were but rigor mortis would have set in by now, and now I’m stiff, and I wish for just a passing, fleeting moment that I could be dead, too, with Annie and with Dad, away from all of this pain.

“Lexie?” Sam speaks gently, and I turn to look at him. The sky has darkened and heavy rain is falling. I look toward the windshield and watch as the water runs down onto the hood, rivulets of ice-cold water. I think about the coldness in Annie’s body. She must be in the refrigerated morgue by now. What would happen if I went and held her hand? Maybe if I held it long enough, I could warm it back up again.

“Lexie,” Sam says again.

This time, I manage to croak out an answer, “Yes?”

“I just wanted to say again—I’m so, so sorry.”

“Thank you. And...I know,” I say, and I go back to watching the water run down the window. When we finally get back to the house, Sam parks the car in the garage and undoes his seat belt, but I don’t move.

“Sweetheart,” Sam says gently. “We need to get Daisy inside.”

I turn to look at him slowly. I’ve been vaguely aware of Sam tending to Daisy since he arrived, but I haven’t really spared her a thought for hours, other than to obsess over what might happen for her next...what might happen for me next. What kind of aunt does that make me?

Am I just her aunt now? Daisy doesn’t have a mother anymore. I’m all she has left. I’m the only mother she’s ever known other than those disrupted days with Annie in the hospital.

I didn’t even tell Annie I loved her. She rang me and I had the chance and I didn’t even think of it.

“Come on,” Sam prompts again, and he unbuckles my seat belt for me. I reach for the door handle, but I can’t focus long enough to open it. Sam removes Daisy from the car and takes her inside, and then he comes back for me. He opens the door and he gently hooks my arm over his shoulder and he leads me out of the garage and to the couch. I lie still like Annie. I close my eyes and I see her purple lips and her gray face, so I open them again and I stare up at the stucco ceiling while Sam prepares a bottle for Daisy and tops up her acetaminophen, and then he bathes and dresses her and brings her back to me, clean and swaddled and happy.

Annie has robbed me. She has taken my happy ending, and I know that this makes me selfish, because it was never my happy ending at all. But I deserved to see her okay again. I deserved another Christmas when we sat beside one another, and we ate spaghetti or turkey or whatever else we wanted and we laughed, and we were both healthy and fully present. I haven’t had one of those for years, and goddamn it, I deserved it. I deserved for Daisy to watch us interact at that dinner. I deserved for Daisy to be my niece—I deserved to be an aunt who could spoil her silly and then pass her back to her mother to handle all the discipline and hard work.

I deserved Annie to be beside me at the altar at my wedding. I deserved to glance at her in her bridesmaid’s gown and I deserved to be jealous of how she outshone me.

And now, she will not be there. She will not be at any of the big events in my life, or her daughter’s life. If Daisy had any chance of surviving her rocky entry into the world unscathed, I’m sure that this is lost now. She will forever be the daughter of a dead woman, a woman who died of a drug overdose—a deliberate drug overdose?

Sam has Daisy tucked in his elbow, but he slides his other arm around me, just as he did this morning. It feels like a million years ago now. I remember the moment I saw a shadow at the window. Was that really Annie, or did I imagine it?

Was that my chance to save her, or was it the phone call?

How hard would it have been for me to just agree to meet with her in the first place, instead of rejecting her and leaving her alone? How hard would those three little words have been to squeeze into our last conversation? Love you, Annie.

Oh God. What if she did it on purpose?

“Lexie,” Sam whispers, and my tears surge again.

“I should have saved her.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“I was supposed to look after her. I should have let her see Daisy today. I should have promised her I’d find a way to help her.”

I press my face into his chest, and I breathe in his scent. He is the warm blanket around my cold heart, but it is not enough—nothing will ever be enough to take away the ache in my chest.

* * *

I share awful phone calls with my mother over the days that follow. Our relationship is just close enough that I’m calling her to make sure she’s okay, but distant enough that I’m wary when she picks up the phone. All it will take for me to lose my mind completely will be one thoughtless platitude, and surely she is building up a database of them. Robert would have reacted to the news of Annie’s death with some condescending, self-righteous commentary, littered with Bible verses and scorn—and Mom is virtually his sidekick. If I hear her say those things, it will be the end of what’s left of our relationship.

And then my family will be gone. Not just broken, not just chaotic: gone. I’m more scared of this than I should be, given how dysfunctional we’ve been for the last twenty years.

But my fears go unfounded. Mostly, we discuss details for the funeral; those little things that really seem to matter in the hollow space between a death and the final farewell. I can’t bring myself to ask Mom if she’s coming, but she seems to want to know the plans, and eventually I realize that I have to assume Robert has agreed to let her come.

It’s important to Mom that the service is in a church, but I know Annie would have hated that, so I insist we hold it at the funeral home. Mom argues initially, but then just as I decide to give in and give her what she wants, she suddenly acquiesces to my wishes and focuses her attention on the wake. Who will be there? Where will we hold it? Who will bring food? We discuss all of this in far too much depth, and it becomes blatantly obvious that it’s simply an unspoken plea from each of us to stay on the line—something to connect over, after all of these years of polite, infrequent, surface-level chats.

Mom eventually tells me that she’s flying in the day before the funeral, but the request to pick her up remains unspoken until I offer to send Sam. He’s more than happy to oblige—he’s been hovering around me looking for ways to support me, and I love him for it, but I can’t open up to him about how I’m feeling just yet. He keeps telling me this isn’t my fault, and I know he’s wrong—but I’m not exactly going to argue the point.

As I watch his car leave the driveway to go get Mom, I exhale for the first time in days, grateful for both his assistance and the space.

I have prepared Sam for his first meeting with my mother. I’ve given him a crash course in the customs of the sect; from the long skirt she’ll be wearing to her hairstyle and head covering, and the oddly formal way she speaks sometimes, as if twenty-first-century slang has bypassed her village. I’ve even warned him to turn the radio off before she gets in the car, to avoid an awkward request from Mom to do so.

“And don’t offer her food,” I add just as he’s walking out the door. He looks at me blankly.

“But...why not?”

“She can’t eat with us.”

Sam blinks at me.

“Members of the sect can’t eat in the presence of nonbelievers. I’m not exactly sure how that will work yet. She’ll probably eat before or after us.”

Sam rubs his jaw wearily.

“Right. No radio, no food, no profanity, no haircuts. Got it.”

I waste the hours while I wait for Mom. I bring Daisy into my bed and I lie beside her and stare at her. I’ve always seen Dad in Annie’s daughter, but now I just see Annie. I run my forefinger over Daisy’s eyes and her little lips, and her cheeks and into her fine hair.

“I don’t know how, Daisy,” I whisper. “But I’m going to do better for you.”

When I hear Sam parking the car, I walk down the stairs with Daisy in my arms. Sam leads Mom into the living room, and she pauses when she sees me with the baby. I haven’t seen my mother face-to-face in almost twenty years, and she has aged terribly in that time. Her hair is now white, still straight and long down her back, tucked beneath a dark gray scarf. Her eyes are as red as mine must be.

Mom drops her luggage onto the floor and walks stiffly across the room toward me. Her hands shake as she reaches for Daisy, but I pull the baby away from her. She doesn’t deserve to hold Annie’s child.

My nostrils flare as I stare at Mom, but her focus is entirely on Daisy. She reaches to touch Daisy’s cheek, and the baby turns her head toward Mom’s finger and tries to gum it.

Don’t waste your energy, Daisy. Mom will never provide sustenance.

“She is beautiful,” Mom chokes, and I let my gaze linger on my mother’s face. She wears so many new lines and so many shadows of sadness. How old is she? Sixty-four, I calculate, but she looks so much older.

I soften suddenly. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the tears that roll down over the lines on Mom’s face, maybe it’s the reality that I just can’t stay angry with her—we have an awful few days to get through, and besides, she is here now. I pass her Daisy, and she sobs noisily as she helps herself to a seat on my couch with the baby in her arms. I watch silently for a while, but then I notice I’m tapping my foot frantically against the floor and I realize how much nervous energy I’m sitting on. Now that my anger is gone, I’m only hurt and deeply saddened that Annie isn’t here. If only Mom had come earlier, she could have been.

Anger starts to rise again at that thought, and I decide that I need to distract myself. I stand, then walk to the kitchen, and I carefully make tea for all of us, focusing hard on each step. When I’m finally before Mom with the tea, she looks up and I see the shadow cross her face. I feel like a complete idiot. Didn’t I warn Sam about this before he left? Mom can’t drink it in the same room as us. It’s one of the community’s basic tenets; the principle of separation.

“Sorry,” I say, and she shakes her head and draws in a deep breath.

“No, no...it’s okay. Thank you. I really could do with some tea.”

I look up at Sam.

“We can leave the room?” he suggests.

Mom shakes her head again, and hesitates for a long moment before she says, “Obviously, in coming here, I’ve relaxed some rules. I think this should be one of them, too.”

“Really?” I’m stunned, but Mom looks at me helplessly.

“Please don’t...just, don’t mention it to Robert.”

So we drink the tea together, and it shouldn’t be a momentous ritual—but for us, it is. Mom wouldn’t have shared food with someone from outside the community in decades, and even as she sips at her tea, she looks slightly nervous—as if the elders might burst in any second and catch her. So to try to ease the awkward atmosphere, I make small talk.

“How was the flight?” I ask her.

“Good, good...”

More awkward silence, then Mom makes an attempt to break it.

“This house is wonderful.”

“Thank you.”

And after several rounds of this, the conversation begins to flow a little. But we don’t talk about Annie, and it occurs to me that we haven’t discussed her much at all since she died. We’ve discussed the funeral, but the subject of the beloved sister and daughter we’re burying remains somehow still too difficult to address.

Sam lingers in the background for a while, occasionally moving into my field of vision. When I meet his eye, he only offers me a reassuring smile. I’m so glad he is here. I smile back, sadly, gratefully. When Daisy starts to fuss, he gently takes her from Mom’s arms to put her down for a nap. After he leaves the room, Mom asks hesitantly, “So everything ready for tomorrow?”

“Of course it is.” I say the words too sharply, and Mom winces. She knew the answer to that question before she asked it. Besides, of course I’ve organized the funeral—I’ve organized everything for the last twenty years. Mom tries now to offer me a sad smile.

“At least Daisy is okay?’

“Daisy is fine for now. There are a lot of decisions to be made in the next few days.”

Mom’s eyebrows knit together, and then she gives me a critical frown.

“Are you and Sam going to...”

I rise, and my stomach is churning.

“We haven’t talked about it.”

“Well, you look like you’re pretty well set up. I’m sure Daisy will be very happy here.”

Now the urge to snap at her is so strong that I have to wrap my arms around my chest to hold it in. I try to stare her down, just like Annie might have done. I’m incredulous—does Mom not realize that the obvious alternative to Sam and me raising Daisy would be Daisy’s grandmother caring for her? Apparently not, and even if she wanted to, I’d never allow it. Surely she must have considered it. Maybe she even raised the possibility with Robert and he said no. He probably thinks that Daisy is tainted—the dirty, sinful daughter of a filthy, sinful drug addict.

“I have things to do,” I say, my tone short. “Make yourself at home.”

I head straight for Sam and Daisy. I find them in the rocking chair in the nursery, Sam completely at home with the baby in his arms. I smile at him sadly from the doorway, and I think about all the dreams that we had. I’ve imagined him here in this very room, settling a child off to sleep. I just assumed it would be our own.

“Everything okay?”

He asks me the question in a soft whisper. I sigh and shrug.

“You know how when someone has hurt you, it takes so little to reopen the wound?”

Sam tilts his head toward me, indicating that I should join him. I move toward the rocking chair slowly then sink down onto the armrest. He slides his arm around my waist, and I lean into him.

“I know your mom has let you down, and there is a lot of history there. But try to keep in mind that she is here. You weren’t even sure that she would come, and yet she has. She said in the car that it was very difficult to get away, and I wondered if that meant that her husband didn’t want her to come. Maybe it cost your mother to be here—and she has just lost her daughter. This is difficult for all of you—for all of us. But Deborah was Annie’s mother. She might not show it, but she must be suffering.”

“She probably thinks that Annie deserved what happened to her.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But she’s here, and that counts for something, right?”

* * *

On the day of my sister’s funeral, I wake at dawn to feed her baby, then I dress in black from head to toe, a black dress, black tights and black shoes. I pair it all with a heavy gray overcoat, and then at the last minute, I add a bright pink scarf. Annie always loved bright colors, and it doesn’t seem right to forget about that now. I put my hair in a bun and coat it with hairspray so that it is absolutely still and fixed in place. I don’t wear makeup. There is no point. I know that I’ll cry it off.

I survey myself in the mirror and note the puffiness around my eyes, and the awful gray bags that now linger beneath them. When Sam wakes, he joins me in the bathroom, and he wraps his arms around me and he says, “I love you, Lexie.”

“I love you, too.”

Daisy, who had been resting in the bouncer on the floor beside my feet, lets out a strange gurgling sound, and I look down at her in alarm. Then I realize—the sound could almost have been a laugh. She is staring at the swishing movement of my skirt around my knees and, for some reason, this has her amused. I turn a little, testing the theory, and she makes the sound again—this time achieving something even closer to a giggle.

Sam and I crouch simultaneously to stare at her.

“You picked a weird day to let out your first laugh, kid,” I say to her, and I look at Sam. “Can you believe that just happened?”

“Maybe she’s giving you a message, Lex,” he offers. I raise my eyebrows even higher.

“Seriously?”

“We have to take joy where we find it, even on the worst days. Daisy laughed, which is a perfectly normal thing for an eight-week-old to do. She’s hit a milestone—her first milestone—probably right on target. We can celebrate it later, but we need to notice it now. Daisy deserves that, doesn’t she?”

I swallow, and my eyes fill with the first of the day’s tears. I rise, and I think about Annie. I would love to be able to call her and say, “Hey, how is rehab going? Fantastic, well, you’re past halfway done now and guess what, by the time you come out, Daisy is going to be giggling—she’s already trying!”

And then Annie would say back to me. “That’s great! That makes all of this worthwhile. I’ll keep at it, okay?”

I bite my lip to try to contain my tears, but I can’t catch them. Sam embraces me, and I fight against the urge to give over to helpless sobs; God, if I start now, how am I going to get through the day? It’s just so unfair. It’s just all so unfair and it hurts so much that I can’t bear it.

“You okay?”

I nod and straighten away from him, then I reach for a Kleenex and dry my cheeks. Sam watches me closely as I pick up Daisy and cuddle her close to my face. I breathe in, then out, and then I turn toward the door.

“I’m here for you, Lex,” Sam says, and I stop and turn back to him with as much of a smile as I can muster.

“I know.”

“Don’t forget it, okay?”

More tears try to surface, and I nod and hastily leave the room. I walk down the stairs and greet both my mother and my future mother-in-law, Anita, who are in the kitchen working in silence to organize food for the wake. Anita has flown into town to help with Daisy during the service and will stay to assist with the logistics of the wake.

Sam has organized all of this directly with his mother, and I’m grateful for that. It means I have completely avoided discussing Annie with Anita so far. I do like my future mother-in-law—she’s an elegant, well-mannered woman—but I don’t really know her all that well yet, having spent only a handful of weekends and holidays with her over the course of my relationship with Sam. I’m sure that beneath the polite veneer she must at least be shocked at the chaotic family Sam is choosing to marry into. Now, though, she passes me a piece of toast and offers a sympathetic smile. I murmur my thanks and sit at the table to try to force myself to eat.

This day reminds me so much of my father’s passing that I have to steel myself against the pain of it. I remember standing on the front lawn, and Annie looking so utterly broken that morning, and racking my brain to think of a way to bring some magic back into the day. Was it right that I insisted she find some happiness that day? Did that set her on a path of seeking happiness in all of the wrong places forever? Now Sam is trying to do the same for me, but life has bruised me so much in the decades since. The last time I wanted to curl up and stop moving forward, Annie was my reason to keep moving. Now that she’s gone, do I just stop? Is this the end of me? Or do I transfer that sense of responsibility to her daughter, and repeat this godforsaken cycle all over again?

There are so few people at Annie’s service. Eliza is there, and other staff from the hospital. This is so depressing. Nobody is here for Annie. They are all here for Sam and me.

We make our way to the cemetery and I watch as they lower my sister’s coffin into the ground. The finality of this strikes me, and the crush of grief starts all over again—this time, so intense that I shake from it. Sam’s arm is around my shoulders where it’s been pretty much all day, but then Mom starts to wail and he pulls her close, too. I would be lost without Sam today. I see the way Mom leans into him just as I do, and I think about Robert. It is utterly evil that he didn’t come. He was a cruel man, but he was still effectively Annie’s father for many years—and he is Mom’s husband. What kind of person is he to be so judgmental, that he would even boycott his stepdaughter’s funeral?

We leave Annie’s graveside and drive home in silence to the wake. We eat the food Anita arranged, and people try to find ways to reminisce about Annie, but given how little of her they actually knew, it’s pointless. They didn’t know her, but I did. She was here, and she mattered, and I loved her, and now she is gone—and maybe I failed her, and maybe the system did, too. Maybe if that judge had offered Annie compassion instead of judgment, things might have been different. Maybe if she’d been able to take Daisy to rehab with her, she could have made more progress. Maybe if they’d given her support instead of an arrest warrant, or maybe if she’d been able to go onto a maintenance program instead of into inpatient rehab, or maybe...

If she only knew how I loved her.

All that I’m left with is memories and maybes. How can I build a better life for Daisy when I don’t even understand what went wrong with her mother?

I slip out of the stilted conversations and resort to sitting by myself in the corner of my living room. Sam sits beside me, and I turn to him and suddenly I’m in shock all over again.

“This is my fault.”

“Stop, Lexie. Annie was tortured. I don’t know why this happened. Who can understand these things? I know one thing for sure—you tried to help her. You did everything you could have done—you were as patient you could have been—you gave her every opportunity to find her feet. And it didn’t work, and it’s unfair, and it’s brutal, but it is also not your fault. I don’t ever want to hear you say that again, okay?”

I try to take what he says to heart, and sit there silently as the crowd begins to thin out.

Finally, I’m left alone in my living room with the small circle of my family—Anita, Mom, Sam and Daisy. The moms clean, while Sam and I sit with Daisy. The table is full of half-eaten trays of food, there are prints on my floor from a dozen muddy feet, and outside the sky is as gray as the feeling in my heart.

Annie is really gone. And somehow, I have to move on.

* * *

I decide that afternoon that I’m going to keep Daisy. I’m already her legal guardian, I have bonded with her and I have effectively been her mother anyway—besides which, there is no alternative. Mom is not offering, and even if she did, I wouldn’t take her up on it. The last thing in the world I want is Annie’s daughter to live in that same stifling environment that damaged her so badly. I promised Annie that I would never let her daughter near Robert, and I’ll honor that promise. But I also decide to keep this decision to myself until I can talk to Sam after Mom is gone. A day passes, and another, and I wait for Mom to announce that she is leaving.

But Mom lingers in my life as if she can’t tear herself away—and I wish that she and I were close enough for me to ask her what her plans are. Although we’re together all day, we don’t talk much. Mom changes diapers, she joins me at doctor’s appointments—she even gets up for Daisy in the middle of the night a few times. I have no idea how to interpret her actions, but soon my mom has been in our home for a week. The only concession she makes to her real life back in Winterton is a quick phone call back to Robert each night. She cooks a lot—baked goods, elaborate dinners, even hot breakfasts some days before Sam leaves for work. It’s an odd thing, because I know what a big deal it is for Mom to eat with us, but since that first cup of tea she hasn’t even hesitated about it. Like so many things in my house that week, my curiosity about Mom’s relaxed approach to the rules remains unspoken.

I want to ask her if things have changed in Winterton since I left, or if she’s just adopted a more moderate interpretation of the rules. I can’t imagine Robert allowing either possibility. We have never talked my decision to leave Winterton. I wonder if she understands why I did. Would we get into an argument if I brought it up?

I’m still too tender—still looking for places to allocate blame and guilt and too frightened to dig deeply into anything with Mom in case I shatter our fragile truce. So I don’t ask, and she doesn’t offer, and instead we share hours of small talk and mutually fuss over the baby.

On the one-week anniversary of Annie’s funeral, Sam, Mom and I are sitting around eating lasagna Mom prepared, when she asks without warning, “Will you legally adopt her?”

I feel Sam’s eyes on my face, and I know that I should say that he and I need to talk about it—but I’m also suddenly terrified that Mom has decided she wants to take Daisy after all. So I clear my throat, and I say, “She’ll stay with me—I’m already her guardian. Down the road, I’ll organize something more formal—an adoption, I guess.”

Mom nods curtly, then she leans back in her chair and says, “I’m going to go tomorrow. Robert has booked my flight. I’m needed back at school.”

“Fine,” I say.

Mom rises to clear the dishes from the table. Ordinarily, Sam or I would offer to help—but not tonight. Sam stares at me, apparently completely speechless.

I open my mouth to defend myself, but he rises abruptly and he raises his hands in disgust, and then leaves the room.

* * *

I take Mom to the airport. Sam is back at work and I haven’t spoken to him since dinner. He slept in the study again, and I know I’m going to have to talk with him as soon as I get home, and I’m dreading it. Mom picks up on the tension, and as soon as we’re in the car, she asks, “Is everything okay with Sam?”

“Everything is fine,” I lie.

“And are you okay?”

No, I’m definitely not okay. My sister is dead, my fiancé is pissed at me and I’m suddenly a mom.

“I’m fine, Mom. Things will go back to normal now, but I’m so glad you could come.”

Mom offers me a slightly hesitant smile.

“It...it was good of Robert to allow me to come.”

I groan impatiently.

“Mom.”

“You know I chose to submit to him, Lexie. It’s not always easy walking the path of righteousness.”

There is no point arguing with her, but now it’s awkward again between us. We drive in silence the rest of the way to the airport, but when the time comes for us to say goodbye and she cries as she gives Daisy one last kiss, I actually battle the urge to ask her to stay. I impulsively pull her close for a tense hug, and I struggle to hold back my tears.

“Will you come back and see us?” I whisper hoarsely.

“I don’t know,” Mom admits. “I’ll ask Robert to pray about it.”

My arms loosen around her, and I watch as she walks through the gate.

* * *

“I can’t tell if you’re trying to push me away, or if it’s just happening automatically and you can’t stop yourself,” Sam says quietly.

I’m sitting on the floor of the nursery, with paint samples and my iPad on the floor in front of me. I look up at Sam, and I swallow hard. I heard him come up the stairs when he walked back in the door from work, and I pretty much froze. I knew a conversation was coming that was going to hurt.

“I was scared that Mom was going to ask if she and Robert could take Daisy. I just said what I had to, to make sure she didn’t get any ideas.” I’m making excuses, and we both know it. Sam exhales.

“Lexie, I want to keep Daisy here, too. It didn’t even cross my mind that we wouldn’t. I was going to talk to you about it once the dust settled after the funeral. But can you imagine if I had just announced that I’d decided we were going to do it? Without consulting you?”

I should be relieved that we’re on the same page, but I’m not. Instead, I’m overcome by guilt.

“We had this whole life planned out for us,” I whisper, and I shrug at him helplessly. “How does Daisy fit into that?”

“It’s pretty simple, actually. The position in our lives that our first child was going to fill is now already taken. Done. Plan updated,” Sam says wryly. “You love that baby, and I love her, too. It’s a no-brainer. My only bone of contention is my fiancée’s nasty habit of making major life decisions without consulting me. There’s a serious pattern forming here, and it’s making me nervous.”

“I was going to talk to you about it,” I say defensively. “There just wasn’t time.”

“We have to make time for that kind of discussion, Lexie,” Sam says impatiently. “I’m so sick of hearing you say that. Yes, I work long hours—well, so do you, normally. We’ve never had communication problems before. As soon as Annie came back into our lives, you started shutting me out, and I just don’t understand why.”

“I haven’t shut you out,” I say abruptly. “I—”

“That’s exactly what you’ve been doing,” Sam says with a slightly incredulous laugh. “I can’t think of a better term to describe it. You’ve been through hell, and all along, I’ve been tagging behind trying to support you. Not once in all of this have you asked me for help, or even accepted it without a battle when I offered.”

“I’ve accepted your help—”

“When I’ve insisted. Or you’ve had no choice.”

“But I—”

“Lexie, can you think of one time in the last two months when you’ve reached out to me voluntarily and asked me for advice, or a hug or practical assistance? Just one time.”

I think back over the weeks that have passed, and in each of the memories that flit past me, Sam is hovering, offering, waiting, agreeing to help when I asked, but he’s right—I have asked only when I had no alternative.

“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper.

“I know, Lex. I know it’s habit, and I kind of understand why. But it has to stop now. We’re parents now. We need to be a team, right?”

He stares at me, waiting for my response, and I’m swamped by a sudden realization of how lucky I am to have a man like Sam in my life. I love him in a way that I never expected—with gratitude and with admiration and with a passion that I feel so sure we can cling to even as the years turn into decades. I don’t want to undermine any of that at this early stage just out of a stubborn habit for independence.

“Right.”

His serious expression lightens just a little, and he murmurs, “You know, with two doctors for parents—that kid is going to be so smart. We’re going to need to work together to stay ahead of her.”

The joke shatters the last of the tense atmosphere between us, and I laugh weakly. Sam points to the paint swatches.

“We’re officially making this a nursery, then?”

“Well, Daisy obviously doesn’t want gray walls in her room. I thought maybe a nice crisp yellow would work well.”

“And by that do you mean, ‘Sam, cancel golf on the weekend, we have painting to do’?” he asks. There’s a hint of a smile in his voice. Sam wants to help. Sam is pleased when I ask him to. I’m already learning. I can do this.

“There are so many things we have to figure out. I only have a few weeks of leave left, so we need to look into a nanny, and I need to talk to someone to see how we go about making this permanent and we should get Daisy added to our insurance and...” I trail off and groan, suddenly overwhelmed. “And we need to paint this room.”

“Make a list, honey. We’ll talk about it over dinner.”

Sam’s calm patience is exactly what I need. I tilt my head at him and I smile.

“Thanks, Sam.”

“See how awesome I am?” he says pointedly. “And this is precisely why you should talk to me about this stuff.”

“Got it,” I assure him, and this time, I really think I have.

* * *

A few days later, a police officer comes to my front door. He’s holding a small box.

“Alexis? You probably don’t remember me. I came to the trailer when your sister...” He trails off, and I nod.

“Can I help you?”

“We found this in the trailer and I thought you might want to have it.”

“What is it?” I frown as I take the box.

“It’s a journal. It was open on the desk when she... We had to take it as evidence, in case there was a note. The coroner has closed her case as an accidental death, so we’re finished with it now and I took a look at it and I figured... Well, seems like the kind of thing a family member would want.”

“Accidental?” I repeat, and my heart starts to race. “How could they know that?”

“Are you sure you want to know this, ma’am?” the officer asks me hesitantly, but I nod desperately, and he says, “Well, there were no narcotics in her urine, so the coroner figured she’d been clean for a while and just miscalculated her dose when she relapsed. They subpoenaed her medical records from the hospital and he said she needed a significant dose of methadone, so most likely she was using a lot of heroin back before she detoxed. His best guess was that she just didn’t realize her tolerance would be gone—what was once an ordinary dose to her was this time unfortunately lethal. No way to be sure, but it really did look like a mistake. I’m so sorry for your loss, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, and the officer tips his hat toward me and he leaves.

I sit by the fire to open the box. When I see the journal, I see the first page filled with Annie’s familiar, flowery script and I start to cry. I touch the page with my fingertip and I trace the words of the first line.

Oh, Annie.

I start to read, and the tears turn to a smile. As my gaze flies over the words, I hear her voice in my mind, reading it to me—telling me things that she should have told me over all of those years. I read only the first entry before Daisy wakes up, but I’m glad for the break—because I want to prolong this.

I feel like this is the last conversation I’ll ever have with my sister and maybe, if I experience this word by word, I can stretch it out until I’m ready to let her go.

And despite the officer’s assurances that Annie’s death was a mistake, I’m still not sure what I’ll find on that last page. Perhaps she did make a dosage mistake—but she also relapsed, and she did so right after I hung up on her.

Whatever she was looking for in that phone call the day she died, she didn’t get it. And perhaps I’ll live with that guilt for the rest of my life, but there’s a slim chance that some clue to Annie’s state of mind is waiting for me in those last few pages. That might not bring me peace—in fact, it might mean even more torment.

But if I can just understand her even a little, then maybe I can let her go.

* * *

Sam decides to take on the task of finding a nanny, and within a few days he tells me he’s found the most overqualified, nurturing woman on earth. She is thirty-three, she has a degree in children’s psychology and she is looking for full-time work.

She is happy to live with us, but she is also happy to live separately. If I had drawn up a description of the perfect nanny—à la Mary Poppins—Jayne is what I would have described. From the first moment I meet her, I know that we have the right person.

I’ve noticed that some people hold Daisy, and other people cuddle her. Jayne is definitely a cuddler. She scoops the baby up into her arms with obvious delight, and she immediately launches into a one-sided conversation with Daisy as if this is a completely natural thing for her to be doing. I still struggle to remember to talk to Daisy, so I marvel at Jayne’s ease. Sam asks her about infant nutrition, and Jayne teaches us a thing or two about baby-led weaning and the psychology of offering a broad variety of foods once Daisy starts on solids.

“And don’t get me started on reading,” she says with a laugh. “This is the age to start, believe me. The last family I worked with thought I was insane when I started reading to their newborn twins, but they were eating their words once those kids started school.”

Jayne has a trial morning with Daisy, and I take the opportunity to lock myself away in the study and call Mary Walters. It’s a task I’ve been putting off, but now that Sam and I have agreed that we will adopt Daisy, it needs to be done.

“Oh, Dr. Vidler,” Mary says softly when she takes my call. “I’m so sorry to hear about Annie.”

It strikes me that Mary has never used Annie’s name like that before. She speaks it with solemnity and care, and I’m actually quite touched.

“I’m calling because we want to adopt Daisy, and I don’t know how to go about it.”

“Well, that’s just wonderful to hear,” Mary murmurs before she launches into an explanation about the process. We’ll need a new lawyer—one who specializes in adoptions, but since we’re already caring for Daisy and we’ve undergone the relevant checks, Mary tells me that the process should be smooth enough.

“I wish you all the best, Dr. Vidler. I really do,” she says when it’s time to hang up—and I believe she means it.

Jayne and Daisy get along just fine during that trial morning. I discuss it with Sam, and we agree that she’s perfect, so we offer her the job. Jayne moves into the guesthouse the day before I’m due to go back to work.

Everything is in place, and before I know it, I’m dressing in my work clothes, and I’m kissing Daisy as I head out the door.

I fight a battle against myself as I drive into the clinic. It doesn’t seem right that my sister is dead, but that life can still go on as if nothing ever happened. That battle grows fiercer as I force myself to walk through the doors at the clinic. The receptionists greet me with an awkward welcome, careful not to reference what happened, but the sympathy and apology is in their eyes. Even Oliver is gentle with me, offering only a gruff, “It’s good to have you back.”

When I’m alone in my office, tears loom and I know I’m being ridiculous. This is the job I loved and that I’ve worked damned hard to get. But I don’t want to be back at work. I want to be at home with Daisy. I want to focus on making sure she is okay.

I have patients coming, and once the tide of them starts, it doesn’t stop. I eat lunch between appointments, in the downtime between Mr. Williams’s sore elbow joint and Mrs. Thomas’s eczema. Sam texts me several times during the day. I tell him I’m fine. I don’t want him to worry, and I don’t know how to explain why I’m not. Just how much time do I think I’m entitled to for grieving here?

When five o’clock arrives I’m exhausted—emotionally and physically—and I cry all the way home. Sam has let me know that he will be late; he is still dealing with a huge backlog of patients and surgeries after these disrupted months, too. I walk through the front door to find Jayne sitting on the lounge while Daisy kicks in the bouncer, cooing happily, and an exhausted kind of anger comes down over me.

“What is she doing?”

Jayne gives me a confused smile.

“She’s had a great day—”

“The television, Jayne,” I say sharply. “You can’t put a baby that age in front of the television.”

Jayne rises and snatches up the remote, then flicks the television off.

“I’m so sorry. The house was so quiet—”

The turmoil inside me bursts, but the energy shoots in the wrong direction. I walk briskly toward Daisy and I scoop her up from the bouncer and I say, “Look, I don’t think this is going to work—if you don’t have good enough judgment to realize that a newborn shouldn’t be watching television, how can I possibly leave you alone with her?”

“But—Dr. Vidler—”

“I’m sorry, Jayne. You should go.”

She is staring at me in disbelief, and no wonder—this is coming out of nowhere and I’m being completely unreasonable. I know it, but I also know that I cannot go back to the office tomorrow. I can’t pretend to care about my patients when my entire mind is full of grief and loss.

Jayne tries to convince me to change my mind, then her pleading turns to irritation and after she packs up her things I hear the squeal of her tires as she drives away. I feel so guilty about how I’ve treated her that I cry again.

When Sam comes home, I’m too embarrassed and ashamed to tell him what I did. Jayne was perfect and I’m an idiot. He notices that I’m upset, though. “First day back was tough?”

I could tell him that I can’t handle this. I could tell him that I need to take some time out from my career to heal and to focus on Daisy, but I can’t admit I need to—not even to Sam. I’m strong and I’m independent and I’m not the kind of person who unravels. That’s who I’ve always been, and it’s how I understand myself. If I could get through Dad’s death and Mom’s depression, surely I should be able to cope with this.

“I let Jayne go tonight.”

Sam frowns at me, bewildered.

“Let her go?”

“I fired her.”

His eyes widen in shock.

“What? Why?”

I shake my head fiercely.

“She had this baby in front of the television all day. She all but admitted it. That was her first day, Sam. That would have been her A game—God, who knows where things would have led from here? She has a snooze on the lounge while Daisy rolls around the floor? What about when Daisy is crawling? She has a little nap and Daisy crawls over to play in the fireplace or the medicine cabinet? No. This isn’t going to work. I’ll find someone myself, and until then I’ll take some time off work.”

Sam is staring at me incredulously. There’s a pause, and I wait expectantly for his response, knowing he’s pissed.

“Lexie. This is ridiculous.”

“Oh, I’m ridiculous now?” I gasp, and Sam throws his head back and sighs slowly. I stare at him, but my anger and my frustration are running rampant now, and if there was a chance that I was going to be honest with him, it’s lost to my defensiveness.

“If you need some more time off, we’ll figure it out,” Sam says. “But let’s keep Jayne. We’re not going to find anyone else as qualified.”

“No.”

“Let’s ask Oliver if you can work part-time for a while.”

“Oh, you’re going to go in and do that for me, too, are you?”

“Lexie!” Sam raises his voice and I jump, cringing. He sighs again and rubs his forehead, and then his eyes are pleading with me. “I know you’re under a lot of pressure, Lex. I know you have a lot to process. But surely you can see that you’re being completely irrational about this.”

“Now I’m crazy, too, am I? You just keep pressuring me. What else do you want from me, Sam? I have to talk to you about everything and go straight back to work and take the nanny you want whether I like her or not and oh—” I laugh bitterly “—and don’t be crazy, Lexie. Your family is completely batty and that’s caused enough problems in our perfect little life here, but you can’t be crazy, too. Would that be the straw that broke the camel’s back, Sam? You can put up with my drug-addict sister and my batty mother, but if I’m crazy, too, what happens then, huh? Do you walk out and find someone better?”

“That’s enough.” Sam stands and leaves the room abruptly, and I’m sitting at the kitchen table alone and all of the nonsense that’s just spewed from my mouth circles back through my mind and I want to suck it all back in. The house is suddenly full of my regret, and it feels immense—the distance to go to Sam and apologize is too large for me to cross.

He doesn’t sleep in the study this time. He goes all the way out to the guesthouse.

* * *

I have a case of confusion-induced insomnia. I pace the halls, thinking about Sam. I reflect on our early days dating, and the giddy heights of our relationship as it progressed—I think about the night he proposed, and how I’d never been so happy or so confident about my future.

Then I think about how wrong it feels that he’s not in our house tonight, and how bewildered I am that I have allowed things to get this bad. It’s entirely my fault that he’s out there. Even I’m not sure why I don’t just march across the yard and drag him back to bed.

I am here, living the dream—and apparently somehow, messing it up.

But I don’t want to rely on Sam. What if I let him take care of me, and what if I get too used to it, and then he decides he can’t deal with this situation and he leaves? What if I grew to really need him, and then something happened to him? Would I sink into a depression like Mom? What would that mean for Daisy?

In the past, whenever things were chaotic, I stepped into a well-worn groove of being the stable one. I’m the person in any situation who keeps a calm head, who copes and who fixes things. Other people need me; I don’t need other people. Why can’t Sam respect that? Isn’t that the woman he fell in love with? Sam thinks he wants me to rely on him now, but he really doesn’t. If I was weak, like Annie...like Mom... God, he’d hate it. It’s a burden to be around people like that. I know that all too well. I don’t ever want to be a burden to Sam.

Maybe that’s why I couldn’t tell him the truth today about why I fired Jayne. I don’t want him to know how weak I really feel right now.

I make coffee, and I turn the laptop on and I start to research long-term studies for NAS children. It’s better to do something useful than to ruminate on the situation with Sam, even if the studies all say what I already know. There’s a slightly increased chance that Daisy will suffer from a hyperactivity disorder, but statistically, the likelihood is that her in utero exposure to narcotics will have little long-term effect on her health, as long as I can provide her with a stable home environment.

Family environment is everything to Daisy now. And her only father figure is sleeping in the guesthouse because her mother figure keeps pushing him away. My thoughts circle right on back to Sam. I slam the laptop shut and go back to my pacing.

Daisy wakes for an early-morning feed before I’ve even gone to bed myself, and I prepare the bottle and sit with her. I stare down at her in the darkness of my room, and she is perfect. She drinks greedily at the formula, and the physician in me notes the strength of her sucking reflex now, and the excellent color in her face, and the increased interaction she has with us—her eyes light up when she sees me. She is becoming well again. Daisy is now thirteen weeks old, and has already undergone a detox from a physiological narcotic dependency.

It’s extraordinary to consider the physical suffering she’s endured, and how quickly she seems to have left that behind. The worst of her health issues are probably in the past but...then I think about the psychological hurdles ahead of her, and I’m scared again.

Every tear she is going to shed—every time she’s going to wonder why she wasn’t enough for Annie to be well—I’m going to have to walk her through that. Me: the same woman who sobbed all the way home from work today and who can’t even admit to her fiancé that she’s struggling.

I crumple around my newborn niece, and I breathe in her scent—she smells of innocence, an innocence that will not last long. How will I ever know what to tell her about Annie? How will I know when she’s ready to hear the truth? What do I ask her to call me? If I ask her to call me Aunt Lexie, as soon as she goes to kindergarten, she’s going to ask me why she doesn’t call me “Mom.” If she calls me “Mom,” am I denying my sister’s existence? I can’t do that. I can’t ask that of Daisy. It would be unfair—and I can’t ask that of Annie. It would betray her memory.

I try to think of a solution, right here, right now—I can fix this. Perhaps I acknowledge Annie’s existence from the very first moments of Daisy’s life. Perhaps I put photos of Annie everywhere, old photos—before she started to look so tired. Come to think of it, those are the only photos I have of her, except that one where she’s holding Daisy in the hospital.

After a while I move her into my bed. I cuddle her in my elbow, and I keep her at my side, and I stare at her as she sleeps. The responsibility—the complexity, the grief—they are all overwhelming, and they bundle together to create a hard lump in my chest. And I’m facing this alone, because Sam is in the guesthouse and I pushed him away.

* * *

I’m at the kitchen table the next morning when Sam comes in through the door. He offers me a neutral sort of hello before he goes about preparing his breakfast. He arranges his usual morning meal of toast with eggs, and then he sits beside me. Daisy is in her baby seat, sitting on the table while I push my oatmeal around the bowl.

“Lexie,” Sam says, and I look at him only momentarily before I lose my courage and I look away.

“Please,” I say weakly. “Please let’s not do this now. I’ve had almost no sleep. Please can we talk about it later?”

“Lexie, I just want to help. You’re obviously struggling.” I close my eyes to hold the tears in. Sam rests his hand on my wrist, offering a gentle warmth. I can’t do anything more than nod. “Resign,” he whispers.

“I have to work,” I whisper back. “We need the money.”

“We’ll manage, Lexie. It’s just for a while. Take this time. Focus on Daisy...focus on our family. I think we all need you to be here with her for now.”

I open my eyes and stare at him. He’s gazing at me patiently, and there’s nothing but concern and love in his expression.

“I couldn’t have done this without you, Sam,” I whisper.

“And there will be plenty of times in our future that I’ll need you to get through. That’s what sharing a life is about, honey.”

“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I really am. It’s very hard for me to accept help.”

“That’s become pretty obvious,” Sam says wryly.

“And I’m used to dealing with things on my own.”

“I know.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Good. Daisy is a beautiful, precious little girl but...she represents a huge responsibility that we need to share. I’m her father now. You have to let me fulfill that role—for her sake and for yours—but also, because I want to. Okay?”

“Okay,” I nod, and I exhale.

“So will you take some time out from working?”

Leaving my job feels like a failure—an admission of defeat.

It also feels like a decision that Sam and I are making together, a decision that’s right for all of us. Maybe that makes it okay.

“Okay, Sam,” I murmur. “Just for a while.”

* * *

I call Oliver and I resign over the phone. He doesn’t sound surprised. I expect that now I can focus all of my energies on Daisy that things will get easier, so I’m confused as days begin to pass and everything still feels so difficult.

I’m at home alone with Daisy all day and there’s so much to do. I get frustrated by my bewildering inability to keep on top of things—the laundry piles up and I don’t get any cleaning done and we’re constantly ordering in because there never seems to be time for groceries. Nights of disjointed sleep leave me feeling permanently exhausted, so it takes little for me to feel frazzled. Sam helps a lot when he’s at home, but his work schedule resumes a more regular rhythm and that means he’s on call sometimes and there are plenty of days when he’s at the hospital from early morning until late at night.

Its late on one of those days when Daisy becomes unusually unsettled. She cries for hours, and at first I tell myself that Sam will be home soon and he’ll be able to help, but then he has a ward clerk call to let me know that he’s had to go back into surgery and it’ll be a few hours.

I try all of the things I know usually calm her—singing, rocking, a bottle...but nothing works. This sudden change in her demeanor frightens me. I check her temperature—definitely no fever this time—and then I run through a mental checklist of all the other things that could be upsetting her.

She’s fed, she’s having normal bowel movements, she’s not vomiting—but soon she is red-faced from crying. I have been calm up until this point, but now I’m getting frustrated. I’m exhausted and I’m frazzled and Daisy is still crying, and without even deciding to do it, I call my mom. Robert answers the phone and his voice is curt.

“Hello?”

“Robert, it’s Alexis. Can I please speak with my mother?”

“It’s after midnight, Alexis.”

“I’m sorry. I just need to speak to her.” It is all I can do to keep my voice level enough that the words are coherent. Everything feels topsy-turvy, even this moment—since when do I run to Mom for help?

There is a muffled sound at the end of the phone, footsteps and whispers and more footsteps and a door closes. Then I hear Mom’s voice, gently asking, “Lexie? What is it? Is it the baby?”

The sound of her voice undoes me. Suddenly, it’s not just Daisy I’m scared about—it’s everything.

“Mom, Daisy won’t stop crying. And I had to quit my job and I thought I’d feel better once I did but I just don’t and I can’t even settle her down—”

“Hush, Lexie,” Mom says gently. “Everything is going to be okay. First things first, love. Tell me about Daisy.”

“She’s miserable, and I don’t know what it could be. I’ve given her a bottle—I don’t think she’s constipated—no fever—”

“Love, she’s young—sometimes babies are just unhappy. Try cuddling her—holding her close. Lie down with her.”

“But—Mom—I can’t hold her all night.”

Mom laughs softly.

“Of course you can. I used to do it all the time with you girls when you were unsettled. Sometimes Dad and I took turns, but you can bet your life that if you needed to be cuddled all night, we found a way to do it. I’d even sleep in the rocking chair with you in my arms. You do whatever you have to with a newborn to get enough sleep to get by.”

“But—sleeping upright with the baby is a SIDS risk and Sam works such long hours at the hospital and it’s just me most of the time—and I just need some sleep—” I’m starting to cry again, and my mother’s voice is so gentle, and so consoling.

“Lexie... I think sometimes even you forget that you’re human. This stage of life is always hard, and you’ve got a lot of extra things on your plate. Let’s think about what else we can do to settle her. Did you swaddle her?”

The swaddle.

“I forgot to do that tonight.” I’m embarrassed it has just slipped my mind—my thoughts have just been racing so fast and hard. Daisy always sleeps swaddled—NAS babies tend to have an increased Moro reflex and so they startle more than newborns usually do, and swaddling helps to manage that. But today, all the swaddles were in the wash and without the pile of them on the table to remind me, it was just one step that I forgot to take. I’m suddenly hopelessly mortified by my own inadequacy.

“Can you get her a swaddle, then? Let’s try that,” Mom asks gently.

My tears had stalled when I realized the problem, but now I start to cry again.

“They’re all in the wash. They’re all wet. She spit up all over them—what else can I do? Does this mean she’s going to be like this all night?”

The problem seems insurmountable, until Mom says gently, “Sweetheart, go and get a cot sheet. It doesn’t matter what she is wrapped in, she just wants to feel secure.”

I keep the phone to my ear as I go. Almost the second the cot sheet is tucked around her, Daisy shuts her eyes, the exhausted crying stops and she goes straight to sleep. I’m sobbing and laughing and I feel like a complete idiot.

“That’s it,” Mom whispers gently. “You know what, Lexie? You’ve got this. You have all that you need to be a brilliant mother to Daisy. But there’s one thing you’ve never been good at, sweetheart. I have never once seen you ask for help—not without a struggle first. You can’t raise a child without a support network. It’s not good for you, and it’s not good for her. Promise me you’ll think about that.”

I rest my forehead against the wall, and I close my eyes and focus on her voice. I don’t want to hang up. I love Mom like this—this is the way she was before Dad died—but I haven’t seen a hint of it in thirty years. She is comforting me—and it feels amazing.

“Are you going to be okay now?”

I hear Robert in the background—urging Mom to come back to bed, telling her that she’s being too noisy, telling her that she needs to leave me to sort this out on my own. I feel a tight, painful contraction in my chest.

“I have to go,” Mom says, without waiting for my response. “Call me tomorrow?”

I hang up the phone, and I look at my niece, who is breathing deeply in her sleep.

Mom is right—I need a support network—but I have no idea what that would even look like.

* * *

The next morning, I take Daisy to the mall and finally do the long-overdue grocery run. I just need to see other people—even if I don’t actually speak with them. I feel much calmer by the time we return to the car, and I sing to Daisy while we drive home. As we turn into our street, I see someone on the porch of my house. From a distance, I don’t recognize her, but as I get close I’m shocked to realize it is Mom. How long has she been there? I wonder why she didn’t call when she arrived—and then I realize that she doesn’t own a cell. I park in the garage and get out of the car. As Mom joins me, I blurt, “What are you doing here?”

Mom stares at me. She doesn’t seem upset, but something doesn’t seem right. She opens the back seat door and when she sees Daisy, a broad smile transforms her.

“Mom?” I prompted. Mom glances at me, and she shrugs.

“You have always been there for me, Lexie, and I’ve relied on you far too many times. But you need me now, so I’m here to stay—as long as you need me.”

This makes no sense. I stare at my mother in bewilderment. She leaves the baby and walks toward me, then pulls me into a surprisingly tight hug.

“I wasn’t there for Annie,” she whispers. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to make the same mistake twice.”

I don’t know which of us is more startled when I burst into tears. I feel Mom tense against me.

“Thank you, Mom.” I’m dissolving in her arms, and Mom recovers from her shock and starts to rub gently between my shoulder blades. We stand there for a while, and my tears keep coming and coming, as my mother whispers soothing words into my ear.

“Everything is going to be okay. You’ve been so brave, Lexie. Mom’s here now. You just let it all out, sweetheart.”

And I do. I cry, and I cry, and my mom fusses over me, and it’s funny how it’s been so long since she comforted me that I had forgotten that it feels absolutely amazing. Even when the storm of my emotions has passed, she insists that I go for a nap while she unpacks the car, and when I wake up several hours later, the smell of cookies is in the air, and Daisy is tucked in asleep in the bassinet beside me. Downstairs, I hear Mom moving around, and I lie in bed and I actually let myself rest. I can barely believe the way the tables have turned.

When Daisy wakes up, I take her downstairs to Mom.

“You look better already.” She surveys my face, and then she gives me a very satisfied smile. “Good.”

I drag details out of her over the next few hours. She has—for the first time in over twenty years—disobeyed Robert. She has left the community against his will.

“But—what about when you go back?” I say blankly. Mom winces, and for the first time, she actually looks a little uncertain.

“I don’t know. But I’ve made the decision to come, and I can deal with the fallout—on my own. Got that?” I stare at her blankly, and then I nod because her tone is so authoritative that I’m not even tempted to argue. She stares down at Daisy, and a smile breaks over her face again. “I should have come—so many times. I couldn’t live with myself if I made a mistake like that again. Let me be here now.”

* * *

Mom’s arrival doesn’t make everything better. What it does is much more complex, and somehow more beautiful even than that. Her presence gives me distance from all that has overwhelmed me. With Daisy close by, she gets straight to work on sorting through the mess that the house has fallen into.

And I just stop. There is no frenetic energy to burn off, and no exhaustion to cloud my thoughts. I still meet almost all of Daisy’s care requirements—but now, when I need to go for a walk or to take a nap, I can leave the baby with Mom. This means that for the first time in weeks I get some time to myself—space to hear my own thoughts clearly, and decent stretches of sleep.

I’m like a new person within a few days. I think of all of the newborn mothers who have come to me in tears, struggling to cope with sleep deprivation, and I think about how unsympathetic I’ve been. “It’s just a phase. It will pass.” Or, “All new mothers find it difficult. Hang in there. A few months from now and this will all be a memory.”

I had no idea what I was talking about. I vow to be much more understanding when I return to work.

Space to think means space to really consider my relationship with Sam. There’s no denying he’s been endlessly patient and supportive through all of these weeks, but I also start to realize how unfair I’ve been to him in withholding parts of my history. Sam knows enough about my life to know that my childhood was atypical, but I never really went into any detail.

I never warned him that I have spent most of my life being responsible for things that weren’t actually my problem. I just had no idea how much that would impact me. Have I even told Sam about that year when Mom was too grief-stricken to move? Does he understand just how little she participated in all of my efforts to get Annie well over the years?

He knows plenty about the parts of my life I have chosen to share with him. Those parts that I rarely visit myself, though...the darkest days of my history...they are a mystery to Sam, and maybe he won’t actually understand me until I completely open up to him. So I start to talk about the times I’d rather forget. We sit up at night while Daisy sleeps in the bassinet beside our bed and we talk—really talk, about grief and hope and the past and the future. One day, I surprise him at work with lunch. We sit in his office and talk about Dad’s death, the way that Mom struggled to cope and the role that I had to play to keep us all together. It’s hard to talk about—hard to even think about—but instead of clamming up, I tell him that and Sam listens intently and he says all the right things. When I’m leaving, he thanks me.

“What for?” I ask him blankly, and Sam smiles at me—a proper smile—the unguarded one I haven’t seen for weeks. I can’t help but smile back, especially when he says, “I said ‘thank you’ because you trusted me with something that was hard for you to share, and I didn’t even have to drag it out of you. That’s progress, and I’m happy.”

“Me, too,” I whisper, and then he kisses me properly—not the polite, public kiss he’s been offering me at home in front of Mom.

Sam and I have always had love, but as I open up to him more, an emotional intimacy grows between us that I’d never even thought to hope for. I get a glimpse of what life is going to be like with someone who truly knows me...and a taste of parenting with someone who’s committed to sharing the load.

* * *

After two weeks at our house, Mom tells me that she needs to go home. She says this just as we sit down to enjoy the pie she cooked for dinner, and I’m so startled I drop my fork. She and Sam both stare at me.

“So soon? I didn’t realize—I mean—I didn’t realize you’d be going so soon. I thought—maybe you’d stay until—” I trail off, because I don’t know how to finish the sentence. Mom did say she’d be here as long as I needed her. Things are much better, and I’m feeling much better but—I still need her. I feel like I just found her, and I don’t want lose her again. Do I have to say it? Is this some kind of test? Mom looks down at her plate.

“I have responsibilities back home. There are lessons to write, exams to mark, and the children at the school really need me. And Robert needs me—he is my husband.”

“When are you thinking of leaving?” Sam asks.

“In a few days. Robert has booked me a ticket. He said if I come back now, everything is going to be okay.”

I can see her reluctance to return, and it’s maddening.

“Mom,” I say, “why do you let him control you like this? You obviously don’t want to go, and I still—” I stumble over my words, then I force myself to say them. “I still need—I still want you to stay.”

“It’s been great being here, Lexie. But this isn’t my life. I committed to a life with Robert. I need to go back to it,” she says quietly.

“Why do you always put him first?” I snap at her, and I push my plate away from me with force. “You always did this to us. You always chose what he wanted over what we needed, and—”

“A few days, you say?” Sam’s steady, deep voice cuts through my rapidly escalating hysteria, and Mom and I turn to him. He gives me a smile, all tied up in a pointed glance, and I have to take a deep breath. Let him help. Let him stop the argument. Let him be on your side. He understands.

“Yes,” Mom murmurs. “Robert booked the ticket for Friday.”

“Well, then,” Sam says lightly, “I think you two should go out for dinner tomorrow night—baby free. Spend some quality time together, before Deborah has to leave. Okay? Daisy will be fine with me.”

“I’d like that,” Mom says, and she looks at me. “Lexie?”

It suddenly strikes me just how close I came to a screaming match with Mom. We’ve done this before on the phone in recent years, and had Sam not intervened with his offer of a child-free night, I know that dinner would have quickly escalated to ugliness and we may have lost all our recent progress. Mom has always become very defensive when anyone questioned her loyalty to Robert.

“Thanks, Sam. That would be great.”

I pull the pie back toward myself; it’s too good to waste. Mom’s eyes are on me. I glance up at her and she offers me a smile that’s at least part apology. The smile I return is weak, but it strengthens when I catch Sam’s steady gaze.

I guess sometimes progress really is two steps forward, one step back. But the important thing is that, overall, we’re all moving in the right direction.

* * *

As we’re getting ready for bed that night, I feel like a chapter of my life is coming to a close. Mom is going, and Sam and I are rebuilding, Annie is gone—and I need to let her go.

“What are you up to?” Sam asks me quietly, and I show him the journal. “What is it?”

“It’s Annie’s.”

“Oh?”

“The police brought it here a few weeks ago. They found it in her trailer. I’ve been saving it... I didn’t want to finish it. But I don’t know...it kind of feels like it’s time now.”

Once we’re tucked in bed together, Sam picks up the novel he’s reading, and I take a deep breath and I start to read my sister’s words. I don’t pace myself anymore—I don’t make excuses about needing time to process each entry—I just read. These are all stories that I know, but I need to connect with them again. It’s the ultimate empathy—I’m seeing our childhood through Annie’s eyes, and it is horrifying and magnificent. I see myself through her eyes—and as I read about those early years in the community, I’m no longer the sister who failed her, but the sister who saved her.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks me, again and again as the tears roll down my cheeks.

“Not really,” I reply each time. I feel like Annie is sitting on the bed next to me, too, quietly reading her stories into my ear. Every now and again I close my eyes, and I want to reach out and embrace her. One time, I reach across to that side of the bed, and I’m somehow surprised to find empty space there. It is still inconceivable that she is really gone.

It hurts, but I press on because I want to get to the last page—although I’m not quite brave enough to skip forward. Instead, I read faster—I stop savoring every word, and I just want to inhale her spirit through those pages, to see if I can find her secrets. To see if, as she feared, the way to understand her was locked within these pages.

It’s not long before I find it, and when I do, I’m not prepared. My silent tears turn to panicked sobs, and when I can’t bring myself to explain, I simply point to the page and let Sam read the entry for himself.

“Oh, Lexie...” he whispers. “Shit...”

It makes me feel sick, but I force myself to reread that passage several times before I can really grasp what she’s telling me.

“How did I not know?” is all I can think to say.

“How could you know?” Sam asks.

I think about the changes in my sister during those years. I think about the vibrant, spirited Annie whom I knew before I left the community—and the fragile, wounded girl who came out three years after me. I think about how every sense of innocence she had about life had been smashed out of her—and how obvious it should have been that something terrible had happened within those walls.

But it wasn’t obvious.

And she never told me.

And I never asked. Even when she hinted in the car on the way to rehab, I never pushed—and now I can see that I should have.

Did this secret kill my sister?

Not for a second will I entertain the idea that Annie would have lied about such a thing, not here, not in this book. This journal was such a precious thing to Annie that she carted it around with her for much of her life. She could never hold on to apartments or friends or money in the bank—but she held on to this journal—it was always connected to her memories of Dad. So, even with no way to verify it, and every reason in the world to doubt the very integrity of Annie’s word even at the best of times, I’m entirely convinced that this journal is a true account of her life. Her beauty shines through these words, but so does her pain.

Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t she contact me? I would have come to get her, I would have found a way to get her out of there—I would have done something to make her safe again. But then I think about Annie’s time in the community, and I realize that by the time I left and the abuse started, she had already been broken down. She had been “the bad girl” for so many years by that stage. She already believed that she deserved no better.

I close the journal and I press it to the bottom of the top drawer in my bedside table, then I slam the drawer shut.

“I should have been there.”

“Would it have made any difference if you were, Lexie?”

“The abuse started after I left.”

We each ponder that for a moment, and then Sam asks quietly, “So, was this Annie’s fault?”

I gasp and twist to glare at him.

“What? Of course not!”

“So whose fault was it?” he presses, and I frown. I’m quickly becoming defensive, because Sam should know better than to ask these questions.

“Robert’s,” I snap, and he nods and I inhale as I realize the point he’s just made.

“Exactly. Robert. Robert’s decision, Robert’s actions, Robert’s fault. Not yours.”

I sigh again, and the fight drains out of me.

“Yeah. Okay.”

I’m imagining Annie, terrified in that bedroom we fought so hard to share. I see her wide-awake and staring at the roof, waiting for those footsteps in the hall, unsafe and alone.

I feel her anxiety now as if it were mine. My breath comes faster, and my pulse starts to race, and Sam lifts me until I’m sitting on his lap and his arms are tightly around my shoulders. I try to focus on the steady beat of his heart against my ear. All I can think is...at least Sam is here. I couldn’t have dealt with this alone.

“I should have known. She was so broken when she came out. I should have known something had happened.”

“Sweetheart, I wish I had some magic phrase to say to you to make all of this better, but I don’t.”

“I don’t need you to make it better. You’re doing exactly what I need you to do.” I choke the words out, then I turn and press my face into his shoulder. “You’re here for me.”

“Will you tell Deborah?” he asks me, and I groan softly and nod, then shake my head, then nod again.

“I have to, obviously. But...”

“I can be there when you do it. I can help you with that.”

“I think I need to read the rest of the journal first,” I whisper, but even as I say it, I’m quite terrified of what else I’m going to find.

“Tomorrow,” Sam says quietly. “Why don’t you take tomorrow to read the rest, and we can talk to her after your dinner?”

“Yeah.” I nod, and I take a deep breath. “That’s a really good plan.”

* * *

I tell Mom that I need to take the day to organize paperwork in my office—I mumble something about patient files and catching up on reading journals. I’m relieved when she seems excited to have Daisy to herself for the day.

I try to convince myself that Mom wouldn’t have known—couldn’t have known—but I’m frightened of what it means for our relationship if she did. Mom’s loyalty to Robert was always a mystery to me, but now I can’t help but wonder how deep it runs. If she knew, if she even suspected—that is the end of our relationship. I’ll never speak to her again—I’ll never let her see Daisy again.

I spend the day alone in the office. I start back at the very beginning of Annie’s journal and I parse every word and phrase looking for clues. By the time I get to the last few pages, I have climbed the highs and lows of her addiction with her, and I have been there for her in a way that I never managed to do during the course of her life.

I’ve seen the journey with her eyes, instead of mine—and I’m exhausted.

But I stop just before that last page. I’m going to be completely gutted if this journal ends without at least some kind of clue into Annie’s state of mind when she reached for the needle that last time. Even if she was angry at me, I want to know. I’ve had enough hiding; now I want to embrace the truth, regardless of how painful it is.

“Lexie?” Mom knocks hesitantly on the study door. “Sam will be home soon—do you still want to go for dinner?”

I close the journal and I leave it on my desk, then I open the door. Mom is a picture of a loving grandmother, with Daisy happy and content in her arms, but she’s also a woman reluctant to leave, and powerless to stay.

Mom is looking at me with an expectant, happy look in her eyes and I start to wonder if I can actually tell her about what happened with Annie without losing my mind or losing my temper? Maybe I’ll wait, and do it with Sam. I’ll try to read the mood at dinner, or do it afterward. It might be best to discuss this in private. God only knows how she’s going to react.

“Do you still want to go?” I ask her.

“Of course I do, I’m already dressed.”

My mother’s dress clothes look exactly like day clothes. I give her a smile, and I take Daisy from her arms and kiss her cheek.

“Let me take a shower.”

* * *

I’m sitting on the edge of our bed, pulling on my shoes, when Sam joins me in the bedroom.

“How are you?” he asks.

“I’m okay.”

“Did you read the rest?”

“Most of it.”

“Any other shocks?”

“Probably the only other shock was how much she loved me. Because she did, Sam. She really did. And she knew that I loved her, even if I didn’t say it often enough.”

Sam smiles sadly, and he offers his hand, then pulls me to my feet.

“Are we going to talk to Deborah together?”

“I’m going to play it by ear tonight,” I say. “If the opportunity arises around dinner, I’ll try to bring it up and see how she reacts.”

“Okay, Lex,” Sam murmurs.

“And you are going to stay home with our daughter, and read Dr. Seuss books, even though her only thanks will be to drool and maybe even poop all over you.”

He laughs softly. “I know where I’d rather be.”

I smile sadly at him. “Me, too.”

“If you need to, leave it until you get home, and we’ll do it together. Promise?”

“Promise,” I say, and I mean it.

* * *

I take Mom to a little French restaurant the next suburb over and we have quite a civilized conversation over dinner. We talk about things that are safe. She talks about the schoolhouse at Winterton. I talk to her about my work. She asks if I’ll look for a new job.

“I need to talk to Sam about that,” I say, because that’s the extent of my plan. Mom nods approvingly.

She doesn’t mention Robert during the whole conversation, and I’m glad, because I have a feeling that if she speaks his name I might turn the table over in rage. By the end of the meal, I’m wondering if any opportunity is going to arise for me to broach the topic of his relationship with Annie. But then Mom makes the decision for me—as we finish eating, she says, “Before we go home—you think we could go visit Annie?”

We drive to the cemetery in silence, and then I curse when we reach the front gates to find they are closed. It hadn’t occurred to Mom or me that we wouldn’t be able to reach the grave. I park right in front of the gates, and we get out of the car to stare past them.

“I guess it makes sense.” Mom sighs heavily.

“What time is your flight?”

“Six. Too early for me to come back.”

Suddenly, I know what I have to do, and a frantic kind of madness overtakes me. I go to the trunk of my car and I withdraw a picnic blanket, and I throw it up over the fence. All of the turmoil inside me bursts out as I pull myself up onto the gate.

“What are you doing?” Mom gasps, and I glance back down at her and shake my head.

“Come on, it’s easier than it looks.”

“But it’s probably trespassing—”

“Mom, there’s no better way to honor Annie then to go visit her tonight—so climb the damned fence. Let’s spend one last moment with her. This is what Annie would have done.” Mom is sufficiently moved by my plea, and just as I reach the top I turn around to see my mother close behind. She is surprisingly sprightly climbing up the rails with apparent ease, reaching the top as quickly as I do. As we drop to the other side, we lean into each other and we each start to laugh.

“You’re absolutely right. I can imagine her getting to the fence and just looking at it like climbing it was just part of the fun.” Mom sighs and smiles at me. “She never really let anyone stop her from doing what she wanted to do, did she? Not for better, not for worse.”

We start walking toward the grave, our footsteps a little slow. It is creepy—so many headstones and dark shadows, but I don’t feel unsafe—I’m simply aware of the moment. I feel like this is one of those times I’m going to look back on, and I just want to do it right. I need to tell Mom what I have learned about Annie, and I’m going to do it here where Annie can hear me.

When we reach the gravesite, I rest the picnic blanket right beside the new memorial stone. I ordered it when I planned her funeral, but it wasn’t ready the day we buried her, so this is the first time I’ve seen it. I run my fingers over the engraving of her name, and then I sit back beside Mom.

Are you listening, Annie? I’m here, and I’ve finally heard you.

“Mom,” I whisper. “I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

Mom sits beside me, and she pulls her legs awkwardly toward her chest. She wraps her arms around them while she waits for me to speak, and I look toward her.

“I lied to you today. I didn’t have to work. The police found something in the trailer...it was Annie’s journal. Do you remember that little leather journal—that notebook that she used to carry around when she was a kid?”

Mom is frowning, but she nods.

“How on earth did she still have that?”

“She left it at my place years ago, but I sent it to her at rehab when she was starting to struggle. I thought that maybe she could journal about the things she couldn’t bring herself to say. And she tried, Mom. She left her story on those pages, and I read most of it today.”

My voice is breaking. Every time I blink, I see Annie’s face. I left her. I left her with that man, and he broke her.

Through my tears I see that Mom is looking at me expectantly, and I suddenly feel wary.

“What do you think it said, Mom?”

“Well...” Mom crosses her legs beneath her skirt now and smooths the fabric over her knees. After a moment she shrugs her shoulders, and says, “I think your sister was a very troubled young woman. She rejected everything good in her life many times over, so I can’t imagine there would have been anything positive in a journal like that. I almost wish you hadn’t had to read it, Lexie. I know that I shouldn’t speak evil of her...especially so soon after she’s gone—but she never took responsibility for her life. It didn’t have to go this way.”

I start to shake. I’m shaking so hard that I can’t sit beside my mother anymore, so I stand, and Mom looks up at me with alarm. Everything within me starts to burn and I snap—the words just burst out of me without care or caution.

“Robert hurt her, Mom. He ground her self-esteem into the dust, and then he took advantage of her—and you let it happen.”

“What?” Mom looks utterly bewildered, clearly clueless about what I’m suggesting—and that should be a relief. It is, but now... I can’t bring myself to say the words. God, if I can’t even say them, no wonder Annie never could. I’m suddenly regretting this decision—I can’t do this next to Annie. I don’t want her to hear me say this, in case hearing it makes her hurt even more.

It’s a ridiculous thought.

I stare at the grave as Mom pushes herself to her feet and she takes my hand in hers and she says urgently, “What are you saying? Lexie, whatever Annie suggested—”

“Robert raped her.”

My words echo around us in the otherwise heavy silence of the cemetery, and I look down at my sister’s grave, and I start to cry.

Did you hear me, Annie? I told her for you. He can’t hurt you anymore. Mom knows now. You’re safe now.

“No,” Mom gasps, and she steps back away from me. “Alexis, don’t you say that. It’s not true!”

“Annie wouldn’t have lied. Not in that journal.”

“You can’t make an accusation like that—it’s not fair at all,” Mom whispers. Her low tone is such a stark contrast to my shouting that I have to strain to hear her. “She was incredibly troubled, Lexie—and Robert would never have done such a thing.”

“You know as well I do that he used to hurt Annie in all kinds of ways. The beatings, the fasting—from the moment we got to that house, he tortured her—it just got worse and worse over the years. And he waited until I left to use her for his own disgusting gratification.”

“Lexie, listen to me,” Mom says urgently. “Robert was hard on her, but he cared about her. He just wanted to put her on the right path, and it seemed to work for a while. After you left, she changed—she fit in better and—”

“Because she was terrified of him! Because he convinced her that she was broken beyond repair and too damaged to save. Mom, can’t you see? Didn’t you notice anything?”

“I noticed how he tried so hard to help her, Lexie—he always gave her such special attention. I know he was hard on her, but that was because she needed it—”

She breaks off. Mom is breathing harder. I watch her pale—even in the moonlight I see the color draining from her face. But my anger is a living thing, and it’s not just for Annie that I’m angry. I’m angry for me, too. I’m angry for a childhood that I should have had—a childhood that I never got to experience...because of Mom.

“From the time Dad died, you never put us first—you chose your grief over us, you chose Robert over us. You let us down.”

“I moved you girls to the community because I thought it would be better for you. And I had to marry Robert, Lexie—I had been withdrawn from, and he was the only way we could get back in. Don’t you remember how depressed I was? That was no way for you to live. No way for any of us to live!”

“Don’t try to convince me you did it for us!” I’m shouting again, and now I clench my fists. “We were happy at home. You couldn’t cope—but Annie and I were coping just fine. You had to hide behind that stupid religion because you didn’t have Dad to hide behind anymore!”

“That’s not true, Lexie,” Mom whispers, and the pain on her face is breathtaking. Am I doing the right thing? Does this all really need to be said, or am I saying it to hurt her? I can’t even tell anymore. “I just wanted to be a better mom. Your dad and I went out into the world together and then he was gone, and I just didn’t know how to navigate it alone.”

“So you moved us all into the house of a monster.”

“Robert is not a monster!” Mom gasps, and I laugh bitterly and turn away from her, back toward my sister’s headstone.

“Tell that to Annie, Mom. Face her grave and tell her you don’t believe her.”

Mom approaches, but she stops just behind me. I listen to the sound of her ragged breathing, but my anger is fading—soon all I can feel is remorse. It feels bigger than me, and it’s just so big that I’m not sure how I’m ever going to go on with my life, knowing that Annie was dealing with this pain and I never, ever knew.

Eventually, Mom tentatively touches my shoulders. All of the shouting has faded, and we are both crying very softly. When I don’t shake her off, Mom steps closer and rests her arm over my shoulders as she whispers, “This just isn’t true, Lexie. How could it be? I would have known. She would have told me.”

“She couldn’t even tell me,” I whisper back. “He told her that she deserved it, and she believed him, and then this thing defined her entire life. And it happened in your house—under your roof. How could you not have known? You should have seen it.”

“I would have seen it,” Mom says flatly.

“She had no reason to lie, Mom.” I’m pleading with her to look past what she wants to be the true, to see just how many questions this god-awful discovery answers. “The journal was for her therapist—she just wanted to be understood.”

“They were never even alone together, Lexie. He was at work during the day, and then at night, I was home.”

“He went to her room at night after you went to bed.”

I feel Mom’s arms stiffen over my shoulder, and I turn toward her. Her face is frozen in the moonlight. Uncertainty has crept into her expression.

“What is it?” I prompt, and now I see guilt in Mom’s eyes and I shake her hand off my shoulder. “Did you know, Mom?”

“No! No. But—” She hesitates, and then I see her start to shake. She steps toward the headstone, away from me.

“Mom.”

“He started getting up to pray for her in the middle of the night,” Mom whispers. She turns back to me, and presses her hand over her mouth. “He told me that he had to go to her room, to lay hands on her—he had to try to drive the demons out.”

Now, Mom’s eyes are wild, and by the time she finishes speaking, her voice is high and strained. We are only beginning to understand the immensity of this thing we have missed, but the guilt hits me immediately, and I know it’s risen for Mom, too. Annie is right there with us—the third member of this triad. She is the missing piece of our family, and we finally understand her...but it’s come far too late for us to ever be whole.

“Oh God.” Mom dissolves before me, but I will not comfort her. My mother needs this pain—she has avoided it for twenty years. I watch as Mom falls to her knees in front of Annie’s headstone, and then she turns and crawls toward it, pressing her face into the cold stone as she wails. I sit behind her on the fresh earth, and we are both sobbing in the darkness for what might have been, and for all the ways that we let our Annie down.

* * *

Several hours later, the text comes from Sam.

Are you okay?

Mom and I are sitting on opposite sides of the grave by the time he messages me. We talked quietly for a while, then we ran out of words, and have been sitting in silence. It’s so cold that I’ve been trembling for hours, but whenever I felt the urge to retreat to warmth, I remember that Annie is cold, too. And so we stay.

But after I read Sam’s text, I whisper to Mom, “We need to go home.”

Mom doesn’t say a word as we walk back to the car, and although her sobs have settled, I can hear how tight her chest is from the cold, and how congested her sinuses are from the crying. I feel like I have a nasty case of tonsillitis—my throat is sore from the sobbing, from the yelling, from the tension of it all.

And yet even in all of this, there is something of closure. I didn’t expect it, but now that Annie’s secret is out in the open, I feel like all that is left are memories of love and regret, and a promise to Annie.

I’ll do better for her daughter.

One day, when the time comes for me to tell Daisy about her mother, I will say in earnest that Annie was a troubled woman who was abused and beaten by life. I can tell Daisy that her mother never got the help that she needed or deserved, and that a system that only wanted to protect Daisy managed to drive her mother to the brink.

I can tell Daisy that it’s brutally unfair and wrong, but that at least on some level, the story of Annie’s life makes sense.

When we get home, Mom immediately walks to her room. Sam is sitting on the couch, Daisy sound asleep in his arms.

“I guess you talked to her?” he whispers, and I nod, and I release an exhausted sob.

“I feel like I can breathe again,” I whisper back, and then I start to cry all over again. I take Daisy into my arms. In her sleeping face, I see all that’s left of my sister.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Sam says gently. “Let’s go to bed.”

“There’s something we have to do first.”

We walk up the stairs, and I crawl onto the bed with Daisy still in my arms. Sam has read my mind somehow—he walks to my side of the bed, withdraws the journal and then passes it to me. I open it to the final pages.

“Will you read her last note with me, Sam?”

“Of course I will,” he says.

“Good,” I whisper. “Because I really don’t think I could do it without you.”