“Is your mother telling me the truth?”

He did not look up.

He brought both hands up and ran them hard through his brown hair, leaving it standing in untidy spikes across his forehead.

“Rachel, please,” Ethan muttered to his shoes.

“Let me explain how it started.”

“Is it true?” I asked again, louder this time.

Sylvia let out a short, bitter laugh that echoed off the hard wipe-clean walls of the room.

“He does not need to explain a thing to you,” Sylvia snapped, swinging her velvet coat back over her forearm.