“I let her treat you like an outsider, and then I let her try to hide what Vanessa did to Emma.”

I kept my fingers closed tight around the envelope.

“Thank you for giving the money back, Dad,” I said.

“Could I come by and see Emma sometime next week?” he asked.

“Not yet, Dad,” I said.

My father cleared his throat, tucked his folded handkerchief back into his jacket pocket, and walked off to his car without another word.

I pulled into the gravel drive of my little rental cottage at five past five.

The late afternoon air was muggy and carried the smell of damp pine needles from the woods behind the yard.