Again.

A third time.

His eyes were wild, fixed on me and then jerking upward, toward the third floor, toward the landing where my bedroom and Bryn’s room were.

He could not say a single word.

But he was not confused.

He was the least confused person in that house, and he was trying with the whole of his broken body to tell me something, and everyone in the room had learned to look right past him.

My mother sank to her knees beside the casket and began to keen.

“Odile, sweet girl, why would you do this to us?

We all loved you in this house — we loved you —”

And that was the moment my daughter tore herself loose.