I let it ring four times before I picked it up.

“Mara,” my mother’s voice came through the speaker, breathless and thin.

“Are you home?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Your father said you were angry,” she said, her voice dropping to a pleading whisper.

“He said you would not listen to him.”

“He asked me to lie to the police, Evelyn,” I said.

“It is not a lie, Mara, it is just a timeline,” she said, her wedding band clinking against the phone receiver on her end.