Esme, Liv, Ru, and Atty spent the night in a hotel in Great Neck while Augusta dozed in an armchair next to Nick’s hospital bed. By midmorning, he was discharged. And in the hospital’s pickup driveway, they argued once again, though briefly, about the seating arrangements in the station wagon, the case of boxing squirrels strapped to the roof. Esme won the right to drive. Augusta was too tired to put up much of a fight. She and Nick sat in the front seat. Atty was bumped to the backseat with little discussion; there was unspoken agreement now that her barfing was anxiety-related, not carsickness.

As they headed back to Ocean City, they mostly listened to music and a few NPR spots. At first, they were each aware of the precarious balance of the boxed squirrels on the roof, but as time went on, they forgot about them and each fell into their own quiet thoughts.

They were a family. They were whole and new. Yet still, there were things that needed to be said, and, eventually, Liv said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Esme said. “I don’t think you actually know.”

“Well, I’m sorry I’m a drug addict, for one thing.”

“That’s not an apology. That’s an excuse,” Esme said.

“Yes, but I’ve never really said it out loud before.”

“That’s true,” Atty said. “She’s always hedging about it.”

Liv sighed.

“So go on,” Ru said, “what are you sorry about?”

Liv tapped the window with one knuckle and said, “I really just wanted to save somebody. I wanted to save Atty. I wanted to…”

“You gave her Valium,” Esme said. “She’s a minor!”

“I thought it might help. I thought she was in a bad way.”

“She’s not in a bad way!” Esme said. “She’s rebounding from a difficult situation.”

“Are you in a bad way?” Nick asked Atty.

“I’m kind of in a bad way,” Atty said.

“We’ve all had times like that,” Augusta said. “Haven’t we?”

They all agreed.

The car was quiet. They passed through a toll, which they had to pay the old fashioned way because Augusta didn’t have E-ZPass.

“I have an idea,” Ru said. “Three Statements of Personal Honesty like we did at meetings of The Personal Honesty Movement.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Augusta said.

“What’s The Personal Honesty Movement?” Atty asked.

“Your grandmother started a gazillion movements,” Esme said. “It was a kind of coping mechanism, a bad habit, maybe even a weird nervous tic.”

“How many followers did she have?” Atty said, knowing that she was approaching four thousand followers on Twitter, which was the most of any of her friends.

“I never got much momentum,” Augusta said, as if merely being modest.

“I’d love to start a movement,” Atty said quietly.

“I remember sitting in those meetings,” Liv said. “One woman said that she didn’t like her own dog. That was her Statement of Personal Honesty and we just had to sit there and not laugh at her.”

“It ended badly, as I recall,” Esme said.

“It did,” Augusta said.

“Still, we could use it,” Ru said. “I mean there was something to it.”

“Thank you, Ru,” Augusta said.

“This time,” Esme said to her mother, “you have to actually say something specifically honest.”

“Well, of course,” Augusta said.

“You too,” Ru said to her father.

“Me?”

“It’ll be a good way for them to get to know you,” Augusta said.

“Three statements each?” Liv said.

“Yes,” Ru said.

“My drug addict thing counts as one of my statements,” Liv said. “I should only have to do two.”

“Fine,” Ru said.

“You start,” Esme said to Ru.

“Okay. All right.” Ru scratched the back of her neck then rubbed her hands on her knees. “I stole things from my sister’s life to make art and I should have at least asked first.”

“Better late than never,” Liv said.

“We’re not supposed to comment after what’s said,” Augusta told Liv. “Remember?”

“I think that was a flaw in the Movement, by the way,” Liv said.

“Regardless,” Augusta said.

“Yes,” Atty said, “I think it’s way better if we just confess and no one says anything after we say what we want to. I mean, that would be a relief, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess so,” Esme said, a hint of worry in her voice.

“Go on, Ru,” Atty prodded.

“My career is tanking because I can’t write another book. And…” Ru wasn’t sure what to say next. She searched her mind, but all she saw was the round face of the baby born in the longhouse in Vietnam and so, although she’d never admitted it to herself, she said, “I might want a baby. I mean, not one day, but soon.”

“I didn’t see that one coming!” Esme said.

“That’d be real nice,” Nick said.

“Again, I think we’re just supposed to listen and accept,” Liv said.

“This is really good,” Atty said. “You confess and no one can say anything. It’s so not Episcopal or boarding school or family or anything. You, go,” Atty said to her mom.

“Well.” Esme rubbed her nose and glanced at the rearview and side mirrors and then finally said, “I got our father shot.”

“No, no,” Nick said. “I ran at him and I was the one who—”

Esme ignored him and talked louder. “I haven’t really dealt with the fact that Doug left. And I haven’t been the best mother to Atty because I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?” Liv asked and then she quickly added, “That’s a question, not a comment.”

“I no longer trust my own judgment,” Esme said. “I thought Doug was the safe choice.”

Nick wagged his head. “I did too. I really did.”

“Things change,” Liv said. “People change.”

“Do they?” Ru asked.

Atty thought of Lionel Chang. He was changing on her this very moment, day-to-day. He was becoming a memory, chunks of images, and what she imagined his days were now like—sailboats, pot smoking, the Vineyard.

“Now that I think about it,” Liv told them, “saying I wanted to save someone, Atty in particular, was my second Statement of Personal Honesty so I only need one more.”

“What is it?” Esme asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Atty said. “Here are my three. I did, in fact, want the musket to fire in Brynn Morgan’s face, but I only wanted it to disfigure her. If she died, though, I’d have been okay with that.” She paused. “Can that just be one because I have two more.”

“Sure,” Ru said.

“I want to see my father live and in person to tell him to fuck off. And sometimes if I don’t tweet something, I’m not sure it ever really happened.” She took a big breath, held it, and then said, “That’s it! Oh, and I’ve tweeted almost everything from our whole time together as a family. And now you all just sit here and accept the statements.”

And so they did, and Atty thought to herself—without tweeting it—Being honest sucks, but it’s also very liberating. #startamovement

“Nick,” Augusta said. “Your turn.”

“I might need more time to think about this.”

“It’s an in-the-moment kind of thing,” Liv said.

“Okay,” he said, “I think it had to be this way or no way at all. I couldn’t have been a father the way other men are fathers. I didn’t have it in me. I did it the only way I knew how. And I’m not sure if this is one Statement of Personal Honesty or three or four, but the one good thing about our family is that I appreciate every second I get with all of you. Every single second.”

“He’s more of a speech type than a three-statement type,” Augusta said.

“He’s good at them. You’re not the only wordsmith in the family,” Liv said to Ru.

Ru glanced at Atty and smiled. “Nope, I’m certainly not the only wordsmith in the family.” She was pretty sure Atty was the real writer. “I’ve just got a good memory.”

And then Augusta said, “Correct, Ru. And I’m wondering if you remember the Statements of Personal Honesty that I made that day when you all were little and I taught you to conduct the storms.”

Ru nodded. “I do remember. You said, Your father is a spy. He can’t be known. I love him, despite myself. Any amendments?”

“Just one,” Augusta said. “He can be known, as much as anyone on this earth can be known, that is.”