Chapter 4 — What Bryn Said

Bryn had been standing pressed against Odile’s mother across the room, half-hidden in the crowd of black clothes.

She broke free and ran to me and I dropped to my knees and caught her, and she was shaking so hard I could feel her teeth.

“Grandma is lying,” she said, not to me — to the room, in a high, cracking, furious little voice, pointing one trembling finger straight at Helvi.

“Grandma is lying.

Mommy didn’t want to go away.

Uncle Warrick kicked the door open and he hurt Mommy, and Grandma took Mommy’s phone and locked us in!”

The room went to ice.

Across the kitchen doorway, my brother Warrick — thirty-four years old, my mother’s youngest, the one she had never once made carry a consequence in his life — went the color of paper.

“The child is confused,” my mother said quickly, too quickly.