“You need to come here, Walter.” “Tell me what happened.” “Not on the phone.” “Sarah.” And my sister’s voice cracked straight down the middle.

“She came here at two in the morning.

Her lip was split and her wrist was swollen and she was terrified — terrified — that you wouldn’t believe her over Rebecca.

You need to come, Walter.

Come now.”

Chapter 6 — Two O’Clock in the Morning

I have made my sister tell me that night’s story many times since, slowly, the way you press on a bruise to be sure it’s real, and it does not get easier, because every time I hear it I understand more completely what my daughter carried alone.

Emily had shown up on Sarah’s doorstep in the middle of the night, hurt and shaking, holding Noah’s hand, and the first thing out of her mouth had not been about her split lip or her swelling wrist.