In the end, Virginia was a nonevent. Edith and Val drove the Loop every day. Her mother distracted herself and her father got better. It was his gallbladder after all. There was a celebratory dinner of spaghetti and prosecco, with Martinelli’s sparkling cider for her father.

All together again, Edith’s parents fell into an easy rhythm. Her father loaded more spaghetti onto her and Valerie’s plates. They reminisced: about Edith sneaking out to go to a Christian Hell House. (I didn’t care about Jesus, I just liked ghosts!) The trip they’d taken to Niagara Falls where each of them, one by one, got food poisoning over the course of four days. (Oh good god, her father had said when it struck him. I suppose it’s my turn at last.) When Edith and Valerie went with Tessa to Saratoga. (Edith: You wouldn’t stop singing “You’re So Vain.” Valerie: I wanted to bet on the horses! It was for luck!) They were a family. The first step in a new pattern.

After dinner, her father fell asleep in a recliner watching Columbo. Her mother cleaned up and kept cleaning, scrubbing every baseboard in the house.

She and Valerie collected the clothes and books they’d strewn about the guest room. Only ten days since they’d arrived and already such disorder. Ten days since Valerie had studied her body in that mirror. Ten days since Edith, aching-eyed, had crossed the room to hide her face against the person she loved most.

Hey Val?

Hmm?

Sit with me a sec?

They perched on the edge of the bed, arms around each other. Two girls, frightened and confused but never quite alone. There was a thread-thin awareness that bound them even across vast distances.

Sorry about the other day.

It’s fine, Edie.

It isn’t. Look, I want you in my life however you come. If that means you need to go away sometimes, then go. I mean it, she said, before Valerie could interject. There isn’t some other version of you I could love better. There’s only you, the same person you’ve always been. With all of your stupid foibles and flaws. That’s the person I love. And I love you so fucking much, Val.

Valerie smiled, only a little sadly. I love your stupid foibles and flaws too, Edie. She sensed a but coming; none did.

The next day, they drove back to Texas. Edith and Valerie took turns behind the wheel. They ate Zebra Cakes for lunch and laced their sticky fingers together. When Valerie wasn’t driving, she played “You’re So Vain” on repeat. She read aloud from Franny and Zooey, never looking at Edith for a reaction. No doubts about what she had.

Back in Texas, Edith woke alone for the first time in almost a month. Thinking of whatever had been left unsaid. The Cézanne print still sat on her coffee table with no clear place for it in the wall’s vague plain. She tore it to pieces and put it with all the boxes waiting to be recycled.