One day, after Justin came home from the hospital, a letter came in the mail, intercepted by her mother. Willa watched her turn the envelope in her hand. The address did not have a house number, only the street name. Mrs. Dunham. Crane Street, Locust, NY.

Justin moved slowly into the kitchen, away from the TV, which he was not supposed to be watching too much of. He used one cane now instead of two, and the rubber squeaked on the floor.

“What’s that?” Willa asked. They did not get letters. Bills, sure, but not letters.

“Hold on,” her mother said.

She unfolded the paper, read the first few lines, refolded it, and put it back into the envelope.

“What, Mom?” Justin said.

“Willa, take your brother out of the room.”

“Take him where?”

Justin sat at the table. “Can I see?”

Willa understood. She put her hand on the back of his chair. She didn’t touch him. He sweated through his clothes from the effort of moving around. He smelled. She didn’t feel like a good person anymore. Not a caring person. You just have to get used to him, Jenny had told her.

“Is it mine?” Justin said. “Give it to me.”

“You don’t want it,” Willa said. She spoke gently, trying to be offhand.

“Can I please see it?” Justin said.

“It’s my letter,” Grace said. “It’s not for you.” She took it with her to her bedroom and closed the door.

• •

Before Justin came back, Willa tried to think of something nice to do for him, so she went to the bookstore one day after school with Jenny and bought him a couple of the doorstop fantasy novels he loved. She kept them, two paper bricks, on the coffee table, so he’d see them right away.

“He won’t need those,” her mother said.

Now he held one of the books in his lap. He opened it and tried to read a sentence. It frustrated her to watch him, but Justin didn’t seem bothered that he couldn’t focus. Maybe he wanted to feel them in his hands and the rest didn’t matter.

One Saturday morning, Willa came out of her room at nine and found him in the living room watching TV. His eyes were blue circled, his skin gray. He didn’t sleep much. If their mother had been home, she would have switched the TV off and snapped at Willa for allowing it. It was the worst thing for him. He should be doing the work they’d given him at the Neuro-Recovery Center. They should go for a walk, try to get him stronger. He needed to be pushed, and he didn’t complain when it was Willa doing the pushing. She forgot they shouldn’t be lazy together anymore.

Justin struggled from his chair and went into their mother’s bedroom. Willa followed.

“I bet she got rid of it,” Willa said. He hadn’t forgotten about the letter like she’d hoped.

Her voice struck him in the back and bounced. He continued searching with no regard for their mother’s privacy, taking revenge on her for the years she had done the same. Willa had come home a few times herself to find her room changed in a way she couldn’t pinpoint. With Justin, their mother didn’t even try to hide. She once dumped his backpack out on the kitchen table in front of him when she suspected he was on drugs. Neither of them had ever invaded Grace’s privacy. It hadn’t occurred to Willa before that her mother owned private things. As Justin emptied the drawers, Willa cringed, afraid of what he might pull out.

Justin let a drawer fall off its track and onto the floor. He held the letter in his hand and stared at the envelope. Why hadn’t his mother sent it to the police? Maybe it would help them find Nick? But no, she’d stuck it in her bedside drawer like it was something special.

He freed the sheet of paper from the envelope. His white T-shirt clung to his sweaty skin and turned translucent.

He held the letter slightly away from her and glared at her.

“I’m not going to take it from you,” she said.

He shook and couldn’t hold the page still to read it.

“What does he say about me?” he said, and handed it to her.

She sat on her mother’s soft bed, which smelled so intensely of Grace’s soap and perfume that Willa wanted to puke. She wanted to lie and say the letter explained something to Justin. Gave him something he needed. But what did he need?

The letter said:

If your looking for your son, he is in the woods on route 17 between Carver and Waterville in Iowa. About 2 mls w from Carver.

I’m sorry.

It was not signed. The writer had drawn a map of a road with arrows pointing into white space, which she guessed represented the woods where her brother’s body should be waiting for someone to find him. Why would he send this letter? Out of guilt, cruelty? Stupidity? He would be caught. Someone who sent that kind of letter would be caught.

“It doesn’t say anything,” Willa said.

He yanked it out of her hand, ripping the corner, and read the first line aloud. He read better than she thought he would, though he halted a few times to go back and reread from the beginning.

“We should put it back,” Willa said.

Justin folded the paper, but instead of putting it back in the envelope, he took it with him. Willa stayed in her mother’s room, which smelled of the darkness of her mother, with a heavy curtain in front of the window. A single perfume bottle on the dresser. The perfume was called Happy. A relief to be alone, away from Justin. Whatever he did with the note, she didn’t care. It was his life.

Later, their mother came looking for it. She hadn’t changed out of her work clothes: creamy dress slacks and a soft blouse, strawberry colored. Willa hadn’t bothered to clean up the mess in the bedroom.

“Where is it?” she asked Willa.

Willa pointed in the direction of Justin’s room. She’d been sitting in front of the TV for hours and it had weakened her resolve. She shouldn’t have pointed. He wouldn’t trust her now. Willa followed her mother to Justin’s bedroom.

“What did you expect?” Willa said. “You should have let him see it.”

Grace ignored her. Justin’s door was closed, but Grace had taken the doorknob off the week Justin came home, so she pushed it open and revealed him sitting on the bed. A pointy smell hit Willa from the other side of the room. Under the window, a black smear on the wall rose from the carpet to the windowsill in the shape of an urn. He had burned the letter there. Willa had not smelled smoke while she sat in the living room, and it frightened her. Her mother glared at her first. Justin couldn’t keep himself from doing this, but Willa should have known. Why should she have guessed what he would do? Nothing made sense to her. She couldn’t think straight in this house anymore.

• •

The previous summer, she and Jenny had gone to the nearby bird sanctuary and had found a cave out of which cold air seeped and caressed their faces and bare legs. They welcomed the cold, as the day had been scorching, but it had also unsettled her. The way it clouded out of the flat darkness of the entrance, which was large enough to duck into if they wanted to do such a thing. The hidden place terrified her. Water moved somewhere. She sensed living things inside. It was a place they went back to again and again. One evening, they stood by it and witnessed bats leaving for the night, and they crouched to get out of their way. Willa suspected Jenny hoped to build enough courage to go inside someday, but Willa wouldn’t get there herself. Never.

One day, a cave opened inside Justin. Cold billowed out of him. Out of him and in their mother’s direction. He would take nothing from her. He rejected his pills if they were offered by her hand. She gave them to Willa to deliver, but he didn’t trust them.

“You planned this,” he said to their mother. “To get rid of me.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Grace said. “Why would I want to hurt you?”

To Willa it sounded like a lie, though it was true.

“You’re a witch,” he said.

Grace took him to his neurologist. Willa went along to keep him calm and let him know nothing evil would befall him. She didn’t know what went on between the doctor, Grace, and Justin. She sat in the waiting room reading Better Homes and Gardens. Were there really people who decorated their homes seasonally? New pillows for fall. Different colored throws for spring, for winter.

• •

He suffered nightmares. She had them, too. Hers were about people invading the house. Kids from school. They broke in and stole things, and she panicked around the house, a trapped bird, trying to discover what had been taken.

She heard him walking around. Nails popped in the wood. He turned all the lights on. Grace got out of bed and tried to reason with him, but he couldn’t be persuaded to become reasonable. He didn’t sleep or go to school or remember things. His anger wouldn’t cease, and it inconvenienced them more than anything. Who was he angry with? Nick? Their mother? Her? The anger shot out in every direction like a Roman candle on a spinning wheel. It pierced her and poisoned her with an anger she kept to herself. It distracted her. The books she was meant to read for school languished in her backpack. Math seemed frivolous. One day, she’d be able to leave them. She would move in with Jenny and would decide if and when she saw her family. It was wrong to blame Justin, but she blamed him.

One night, Grace pleaded with him. Please, she begged, please go to your bed and be quiet. I can’t live this way anymore. I need peace.

No. No no no no, he shouted.

Willa heard a loud bang on the other side of her wall that shook her awake like a person. She turned the lamp on next to her bed and waited for her eyes to stop smarting. Half asleep, she put on the jeans she’d taken off before bed. Grace always turned the heat down at night, and the room was freezing. Her room now appeared childish to her, as if she’d woken up much older. Tomorrow, she’d take down the Madonna poster on the far wall, she’d put away the miniature trees on the dresser and the children’s books in the bookcase. So many of these objects had been left out for years, and she’d stopped seeing them. The room wasn’t a collection of choices. She’d put things in their place years ago and hadn’t touched many of them since. It wasn’t like Jenny’s room, which reflected what Jenny was into right now. Willa got out of bed. She wanted to burn the lavender carpet under her feet.

She opened the door and went into the hallway. A glass fell onto the beige carpet and rolled to her feet. A few feet away, Justin lay on the floor, holding his hand against his chest. He’d stripped off his T-shirt and wore only pajama bottoms. Red blotches appeared all over his pale back. Grace retreated to her bedroom in her nightgown. Drawers opened and closed, and her closet door squealed. The bright light of the hallway invaded Willa. At night, the lights in the house glowed horribly white. Justin’s hair gleamed black with sweat. What should she do, cover him? Leave him alone?

He had left a small dent in the wall with his fist. He cried, his face purple, like a little boy she’d seen once at the grocery store throwing a tantrum. One of his hands swelled. It couldn’t be ignored, but she wanted to ignore it and go back into her bedroom and leave him on the floor. She turned and closed her door, so she wouldn’t be tempted to go through it and lock herself inside.

Willa settled on the floor by him and watched him, but he didn’t notice her there. She would stay. Give me your hand, she said, and he twitched at the sound of her voice and gave it to her, crying out in pain when she received it. He was small. Not her brother, but a little animal. He moaned, and his nose leaked. She held the warm hand as it swelled.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said. “I’m here.”